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LIBRARY 

Brigham  Young  University 


LIBRARY 
[lG  UNIVERSITY 

I.  UTAH 


923,  1 
J35w 
V. 13-14 
1905 


14637 


"K 


Jefferson  at  Forty-three 

Photogravure  from  the  Original  Painting  by  Mather  Brown. 

This  life  portrait,  the  earliest  known  of  Jefferson,  is  of  considerable 
historical  importance  for  that  reason  alone.  It  was  painted  in  London,  in 
1786,  ai  the  order  of  John  Adams.  The  artist's  receipt  for  the  picture  is  on 
the  back  of  the  canvas:  l<  London,  May  12,  1786,  Rec'd  of  his  Excellency 
John  Adams,  Esq.,  Six  Guinneas  for  a  kit-kat  portrait  of  Mr.  Jefferson." 
The  painting  is  now  at  the  Adams  homestead  at  Quincy,  Mass.,  and  is 
b.vne^  by  Henry  Adams,  the  great-grandson  of  John  Adams.  \ 


.nwcnS  isHjbM  \d  'gniia'i£cl  iBnighO  arf}  moil  aiuvBigotoriS 

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no  ai  stulDiq  aril  iol  Jqitoai  a'JaittB  ariT  .amfibA  nrfoOo  isbio  srfJ  JJ5  [d8~i 
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V.  I3-/A 

THE  WRITINGS  OF 

Thomas  Jefferson 


SJefinitive  Edition 

CONTAINING   HIS 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY,    NOTES    ON    VIRGINIA,    PARLIA- 
MENTARY    MANUAL,     OFFICIAL    PAPERS, 
MESSAGES  AND  ADDRESSES,  AND  OTHER 
WRITINGS,  OFFICIAL  AND  PRIVATE, 
NOW  COLLECTED  AND 

PUBLISHED  IN  THEIR  ENTIRETY  FOR  THE  FIRST  TIME 

INCLUDING 

ALL  OF  THE  ORIGINAL  MANUSCRIPTS,  DEPOSITED  IN  THE  DEPARTMENT 

OF  STATE  AND  PUBLISHED  IN  1853  BY  ORDER  OF  THE 

JOINT  COMMITTEE  OF  CONGRESS 

WITH  NUMEROUS  ILLUSTRATIONS 

AND 

A    COMPREHENSIVE    ANALYTICAL    INDEX 


Albert  Ellery  Bergh 

EDITOR 


/4<S37 

VOL.  XIII. .» 


ISSUED  UNDER  THE  AUSPICES  OF 

The  Thomas  Jefferson  Memorial  Association 

OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 
1907 


Copyright,  1905, 

BY 

The  Thomas  Jefferson  Memorial 
Association 


HAROLD  D. 
BFUGHAM  YOUNG  UNIVERSITY 
PROVO,  UTAH 


JEFFERSON  AS  A  GEOGRAPHER. 


Among  the  associations  that  in  late  years  have 
paid  tribute  to  the  immortal  honor  of  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son may  be  mentioned  the  National  Geographic 
Society,  which  in  1896  visited  as  a  body  Monticello 
and  the  tomb  of  Jefferson. 

It  was  not  in  recognition  of  the  political  ideas, 
statesman-like  views  nor  even  the  patriotic  labors 
of  this  great  American  that  the  pilgrimage  was  made, 
but  in  acknowledgment  of  his  great  services  to 
science  in  general  and  to  American  geography  in 
particular. 

The  reasons  that  make  Monticello  a  shrine  to  the 
intelligent  visitor  are  too  well  known  to  need  extend- 
ed comment.  As  long  as  the  love  of  liberty  abides 
in  American  hearts;  as  long  as  services  in  the 
interest  of  humanity  merit  man's  admiration;  as 
long  as  desire  for  knowledge  stirs  youthful  aspira- 
tions, so  long  will  the  name  and  memory  of  Thomas 
Jefferson  be  cherished  by  the  rising  generations. 

He  was  a  man  worthy  of  honor,  whether  con- 
sidered as  an  individual  founding  the  University 
of  Virginia,  as  a  Virginian  shedding  lustre  on  his 
native  State,  or  as  an  American,  doing,  in  the  broader 
national  field,  things  of  the  greatest  import  for  his 

VOL.   XIII — A 


ii  Jefferson  as  a  Geographer 

countrymen  and  for  oppressed  humanity  every- 
where. Trite  may  have  been  the  truths  he  uttered, 
but  they  are  the  bases  of  human  liberty;  and  he 
voiced  so  aptly  and  clearly  the  aspirations  of  the 
people  that  his  words  thrilled  mankind,  and  will 
do  so  in  ages  to  come. 

The  National  Geographic  Society  erred  not  in 
making  Monticello  the  scene  of  its  annual  field  day, 
for  its  members  realized  that  of  all  our  Presidents, 
Jefferson  is  the  only  one  of  whom  it  can  be  said: — 
"He  was  a  geographer.' ' 

We  do  not  know  how  far  he  aided  his  father  in 
the  surveys  or  draughting  that  resulted  in  the 
famed  Jefferson  and  Fry  map  of  Virginia,  published 
in  London  in  1775,  under  Jeffreys  the  royal  geogra- 
pher. We  can  well  imagine,  however,  young  Jeffer- 
son eagerly  studying  this  valuable  chart  of  Virginia, 
especially  its  southwestern  and  scarcely  known 
frontiers,  then  given  over  to  the  trapper,  the  Indian 
and  the  Spaniard. 

Men  of  genius  make  all  knowledge  tributary  to 
their  particular  interests  and  ambitions ;  and  doubt- 
less through  such  studies  his  comprehending  mind, 
in  a  manner  common  to  all  such  men,  stored  those 
geographic  facts  and  concrete  ideas  which  better 
fitted  him  for  his  duties  in  after  life. 

In  the  days  of  travail  for  this  nation,  when  to 
Europe  America  was  a  land  of  savages  and  forests, 
then  it  was  that  Jefferson  did  his  first  public  geo- 
graphical work,   writing   "  Notes   on  Virginia"   to 


Jefferson  as  a  Geographer  iii 

make  known  to  the  statesmen  of  France  the 
resources  and  possibilities  of  a  struggling  colony. 
We  know  that  the  book  was  timely  and  effective, 
and  we  believe  that  its  preparation  broadened  the 
mind  of  its  author. 

Jefferson's  merit  as  a  geographer  is  scarcely 
appreciated  by  the  men  of  this  generation,  who  are 
so  familiar  with  the  phases  of  scientific  geography 
which  have  resulted  from  the  knowledge,  labor  and 
genius  of  Alexander  von  Humboldt.  However  Jef- 
ferson, 1 78 1,  may  be  said  to  stand  in  geographical 
tendencies  between  Bernhard  Varenius,  who  in 
"Geographia  generalis,"  1650,  essayed  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  climatic  conditions  and  the  physical 
changes  of  the  earth's  surface,  and  Humboldt's 
1 '  Kosmos, "  1 845 .  The  latter  supplemented  Varenius 
by  pointing  out  the  connection  of  climate  and  soil 
formations  with  the  distribution  of  plant  and  animal 
life,  and  yet  more  important  the  relation  of  geo- 
graphic environment  to  the  development  of  man- 
kind, especially  as  to  colonization,  commerce  and 
industry. 

Jefferson's  "  Notes  on  Virginia,"  fifty  years  in  ad- 
vance of  Humboldt,  is  along  lines  definitely  formu- 
lated by  the  latter  in  scientific  geography.  Jefferson 
does  not  confine  himself  to  a  mere  enumeration  of 
towns,  rivers,  boundaries,  inhabitants,  industries, 
productions  and  form  of  government  in  Virginia. 
He  describes  not  only  its  rivers,  but  their  relations 
to  commerce  and  especially  to  their  possible  utility 


iv  Jefferson  as  a  Geographer 

in  trade  with  Ohio,  the  Great  Lakes  and  the  Mis- 
sissippi Valley.  The  plants  and  trees  are  classified 
as  to  their  value  for  ornamental,  medicinal  and 
esculent  purposes.  Comparative  views  are  given 
of  native  birds  and  animals  with  those  of  Europe. 
The  subject  of  climate  is  handled  admirably  for 
such  an  early  date.  The  pressure,  rain,  tempera- 
ture and  wind  are  treated  briefly  and  clearly  in  their 
general  aspects.  The  effect  of  seawinds  on  salt- 
making,  the  prevalence  of  sunshine,  the  temperatures 
at  which  frosts  occur  and  their  effect  on  plant-life; 
and  other  similar  notes  evidence  the  acuteness  of 
Jefferson's  observations  and  his  happy  powers  of 
generalization.  If  he  had  exclusively  applied  him- 
self to  geography  there  is  little  doubt  that  he  would 
have  distinguished  himself  in  the  science. 

Nor  does  Jefferson's  merit  as  a  geographer  depend 
alone  on  the  publication  of  a  book,  but  there  are 
constantly  recurring  acts  which  emphasize  his 
realization  of  the  importance  of  geography  in  the 
evolution  of  a  nation.  But  for  this  quality  the 
United  States  might  well  to-day  be  a  country  cut 
off  from  direct  access  either  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
or  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

While  President  he  frequently  forecast  the  direc- 
tions in  which  the  United  States  must  grow.  He 
speaks  of  it  in  his  first  inaugural  as  "A  rising  nation 
spread  over  a  wide  and  fruitful  land,  traversing 
all  seas  with  the  rich  production  of  its  industry." 

Under  him  the  "First  Census"  was  completed, 


Jefferson  as  a  Geographer  v 

and  he  says  of  it:  "We  contemplate  this  rapid 
growth,  and  the  prospect  it  holds  to  us,  with  a  view 
to  the  settlement  of  the  extensive  country  still 
remaining  vacant  within  our  limits." 

He  realized  more  keenly — and  therein  acted  more 
wisely — than  other  Presidents  the  value  to  con- 
tiguous nations  of  exact  and  definite  boundaries, 
and  in  frequent  messages  spoke  of  work  inaugurated 
by  him  to  mark  out  the  boundaries  between  the 
United  States,  the  Indians,  and  the  British  posses- 
sions. 

His  greatest  geographical  measure  was  his  extra- 
constitutional  act  of  annexation  by  purchase  of 
the  great  territory  of  Louisiana.  He  realized  that 
the  natural  and  only  satisfactory  southern  boundary 
of  the  United  States  was  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  from 
which  we  were  cut  off  by  the  Floridas.  While  the 
then  western  limit  was  the  Mississippi  River,  his 
opinion  was  clear,  in  his  age  of  ante-steam  trans- 
portation, that  by  this  route  the  great  crops  of  the 
West  must  pass  to  Europe  and  other  lands.  In 
regard  to  Louisiana,  not  only  was  the  Mississippi 
Valley  vital  to  the  growing  interests  of  the  country, 
but  Jefferson  realized  that  the  great  fur  trade  of 
the  Northwest  should  find  outlet  in  the  United 
States  to  the  southward  through  the  accessible 
Missouri  Valley  rather  than  to  the  northward 
across  the  difficult  Hudson  Bay  territory.  Within 
a  month  after  submitting  to  Congress  the  conven- 
tion with  France  for  the  cession  of  Louisiana  to  the 

VOL.  XIII B 


vi  Jefferson  as  a  Geographer 

United  States  he  transmitted  an  extensive  and 
valuable  description  of  Louisiana,  as  of  utility  to 
Congress  in  providing  for  the  government  of  that 
country. 

Nor  was  his  action  confined  to  messages  alone, 
for,  Louisiana  acquired,  Jefferson  like  a  good  geogra- 
pher initiated  a  survey  of  its  immense  and  unknown 
areas,  sending  Lewis  and  Clarke  to  the  West,  and 
Pike  to  the  North  and  then  to  the  Southwest.  With 
unwonted  wisdom  and  courage,  even  before  the 
territory  was  formally  transferred,  he  ordered  Cap- 
tains Meriwether  Lewis  and  William  Clarke  on  a 
long  and  perilous  mission,  the  first  as  well  as  the 
most  important  of  all  American  explorations. 
Their  three  years'  journey  won  the  way  to  the 
Pacific  overland,  and  this  discovery  of  the  upper 
valley  of  the  Columbia,  conjoined  with  Gray's 
entrance  at  the  mouth  of  that  noble  waterway  in 
1792,  insured  the  title  of  the  United  States  to 
Oregon  territory  in  1845.  Without  Jefferson's  origi- 
nal action  we  might  have  no  foothold  on  the  Pacific 
to-day. 

There  are  also  due  to  Jefferson's  action  the  explo- 
rations of  Lieutenant  Pike  of  the  upper  Mississippi 
and  northwestern  Minnesota,  and  of  the  extension 
of  our  geographical  knowledge  to  the  Upper  Rio 
Grande  and  other  parts  of  the  Spanish  dominion, 
then  known  as  New  Spain. 

Nor  was  Jefferson  insensible  to  the  geographical 
conditions  of  the  Southwest.     He  caused  to  be  com- 


Jefferson  as  a  Geographer  vii 

piled  and  submitted  to  Congress  an  account  by 
Dr.  Sibley  of  the  Red  River  Valley,  including  the 
Washita,  and  caused  these  sections  to  be  explored. 

Jefferson  took  an  active  and  conservative  interest 
in  the  extinction  of  Indian  titles  to  lands,  so  that 
the  trans-Allegheny  regions  might  be  peaceably 
opened  to  enterprising  settlers. 

It  should  also  be  remembered  that  he  was  foremost, 
if  not  first,  in  formulating  plans  and  methods 
whereby  the  public  lands  should  not  lie  wild  and 
fallow,  but  serve  their  purpose  of  developing  the 
nation's  power  by  passing  systematically  and  easily 
into  the  hands  of  the  settler  and  the  farmer,  a  policy 
which  has  proved  to  be  a  dominant  factor  in  our 
phenomenal  growth  and  prosperity. 

While  we  pay  tribute  to  Jefferson  as  an  individual, 
as  a  citizen,  as  a  lover  of  liberty,  and  as  a  President, 
let  us  not  then  forget  his  special  claim  to  recognition 
as  one  of  the  greatest  of  American  geographers. 


• 


New  York  and  New  Hampshire  Signers   : 

{Declaration  of  Independence) 

The  Reproductions  are  from  the  Original  Paintings  in  Independence  Hall, 

Philadelphia. 

Lewis  Morris  (1726-1798)  was  born  in  Morrisania,  N.  Y.  He 
entered  Yale  College  at  sixteen  years  of  age  and  was  graduated  in  four 
years,  following  the  business  of  agriculture  up  to  the  time  of  taking  his 
seat  in  Congress  in  1775.  He  served  on  most  of  the  important  committees, 
and  was  assigned  the  difficult  task  of  winning  the  Western  Indians  from 
alliance  with  the  British,  which  he  effected.  During  the  Revolutionary 
War  his  beautiful  estate  was  devastated.  He  left  Congress  in  1777,  and 
subsequently  served  in  the  State  Legislature,  and  rose  in  the  ranks  of  the 
army  to  the  post  of  Major- General.  (Reproduced  from  the  Painting 
by  George  W.  Flagg  after  the  Original  Painting  by  John   Trumbull.) 

"William  Floyd  (1734-1821)  was  born  in  Suffolk  County,  Long 
Island.  He  received  a  scant  education,  but  was  naturally  intelligent.  Early 
in  life  he  was  called  upon  to  manage  a  large  estate  left  him  at  his  father's 
death.  He  was  a  member  of  the  New  York  Committee  of  Correspondence 
and  a  delegate  to  Congress  from  1774  to  1777.  He  served  on  the  boards 
of  Admiralty  and  the  Treasury.  From  1777  to  1788  he  was  a  member  of 
the  State  Senate  of  New  York.  He  distinguished  himself  as  a  military 
leader  when  placed  in  command  of  the  Long  Island  militia.  He  was  a 
member  of  the  New  York  State  Constitution  Conventions  of  1801  and 
1820.  (Reproduced  from  the  Painting  by  He7iry  after  the  Original 
Painting  by  Polk.) 

Josiah  Bartlett  (1729-1795)  was  born  at  Amesbury,  Mass. 
With  only  a  common  school  education  and  a  knowledge  of  medicine, 
gained  through  study  with  an  ordinary  practitioner,  he  began  his  career 
as  a  doctor  in  Kingston,  N.  H.,  1750.  He  soon  became  eminent  as  a 
physician.  From  1765  until  the  Revolution  \ie  was  chosen  to  the  Pro- 
vincial Legislature.  In  1775  and  1776  he  held  a  seat  in  the  Continental 
Congress  and  was  one  of  the  first  to  sign  the  Declaration.  He  served 
in  Congress  again  in  1778,  and  the  next  year  was  appointed  Chief  Justice 
of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas.  Ten  years  later  he  was  Chief  Justice  of 
the  Supreme  Court.  He  was  an  active  member  in  the  convention  which 
adopted  the  Federal  Constitution.  In  1790  he  was  elected  President  of 
New  Hampshire.  Under  the  new  Constitution  of  that  State  he  became  its 
first  Governor  in  1793.  {Reproduced  from  the  Painting  by  Caroline 
Weeks  after  the  Original  Painting  by  John  Trumbull.) 

•William  Whipple  (1730-1785)  was  born  at  Kittery,  Me. 
Equipped  with  a  public  school  education,  he  went  to  sea  as  a  boy 
and  rose  to  command  of  a  West  India  trading  vessel.  At  the  age  of 
twenty-nine  he  started  a  mercantile  business  in  Portsmouth,  N.  H.  The 
citizens  of  that  place  elected  him  a  member  of  the  Provincial  Congress  of 
1775,  and  made  him  one  of  the  Committee  of  Safety.  He  served  the 
Continental  Congress  through  1776  up  to  the  fall  of  1777,  when  the  New 
Hampshire  Assembly  put  him  in  command  of  a  brigade  sent  to  oppose 
General  Burgoyne.  At  the  battle  of  Saratoga  he  commanded  the  New 
Hampshire  troops.  In  1778  he  took  part  in  General  Sullivan's  expedition 
to  Rhode  Island,  and  went  to  Congress  for  another  term.  From  1780  to 
1784  he  was  a  member  of  the  Assembly.  In  1782  he  was  appointed  Judge 
of  the  New  Hampshire  Superior  Court.  (Reproduced  from  a  Paint- 
ing after  the  Original  Painting  by  St.  Memin.~) 

Philip  Livingston  (1716-1778)  was  born  at  Albany,  N.  Y.  He 
was  graduated  at  Yale  College  in  1737  and  at  once  entered  commercial 
business  in  New  York  City.  After  holding  the  office  of  Alderman  for  nine 
years  he  became  a  member  of  the  Legislature  in  1759.  He  was  promi- 
nent on  the  Committee  of  Correspondence  which  exchanged  letters  with 
Edmund  Burke.  He  went  to  the  Continental  Congress  in  1774,  and 
figured  as  one  of  the  most  ardent  supporters  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence. In  April,  1775,  he  was  made  President  of  Congress  and  early 
in  1776  unanimously  elected  to  the  Assembly.  He  served  on  the  Treas- 
ury Board  and  on  the  Marine  Committee.  Besides  these  valuable  services, 
he  founded  the  Professorship  of  Divinity  at  his  Alma  Mater,  and  was  one 
of  the  founders  of  the  New  York  Chamber  of  Commerce.  {Reproduced 
from  the  Original  Painting  by  Che.-*  ion  Peale.) 


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WILLIAM    WHIPPLE 


PHILIP    LIVINGSTON 


WIRT'S  EULOGY  ON  JEFFERSON.1 


Having  in  this  imperfect  manner,  fellow-citizens, 
touched  rather  than  traced  the  incidents  by  which 
Mr.  Adams  was  prepared  and  conducted  into  the 
scenes  of  the  Revolution,  let  us  turn  to  the  great 
luminary  of  the  South. 

Virginia,  as  you  know,  had  been  settled  by  other 
causes  than  those  which  had  peopled  Massachu- 
setts ;  and  the  colonists  themselves  were  of  a  differ- 
ent character.  The  first  attempts  at  settlement 
in  that  quarter  of  the  world  had  been  conducted, 
as  you  remember,  under  the  auspices  of  the  gallant 
Raleigh,  that  "man  of  wit  and  man  of  the  sword," 
as  Sir  Edward  Coke  tauntingly  called  him,  and  cer- 
tainly one  of  the  brightest  flowers  in  the  courts  of 
Elizabeth  and  James.  He  did  not  live  to  make  a 
permanent  establishment  in  Virginia;  but  his 
genius  seems,  nevertheless,  to  have  presided  over 
the  State,  and  to  have  stamped  his  own  character 
on  her  distinguished  sons.  Virginia  had  experienced 
none  of  those  early  and  long-continued  conflicts 
which  had  contributed  to  form  the  robust  char- 
acter of  the  North;    on  the  contrary,  during  the 

1  From  eulogy  on  Thomas  Jefferson  and  John  Adams,  delivered  by 
William  Wirt  at  Washington,  D.  C  ,  on  October  19,  1826,  in  the  Hall 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States. 


x  Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

century  that  Massachusetts  had  been  buffeting  with 
the  storm,  Virginia,  resting  on  a  halcyon  sea,  had 
been  cultivating  the  graces  of  science  and  litera- 
ture and  the  genial  elegancies  of  social  life.  But 
her  moral  and  intellectual  character  was  not  less 
firm  and  vigorous  than  that  of  her  Northern  sister: 
for  the  invader  came,  and  Athens  as  well  as  Sparta 
was  found  ready  to  do  her  duty,  and  to  do  it  too, 
bravely,  ably,  heroically. 

At  the  time  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  appearance,  the 
society  of  Virginia  was  much  diversified,  and  reflected 
pretty  distinctly  an  image  of  that  of  England. 
There  was,  first,  the  landed  aristocracy,  shadowing 
forth  the  order  of  English  nobility;  then  the  sturdy 
yeomanry,  common  to  them  both;  and  last  a 
foeculum  of  beings,  as  they  were  called  by  Mr. 
Jefferson,  corresponding  with  the  mass  of  the  Eng- 
lish plebeians. 

Mr.  Jefferson,  by  birth,  belonged  to  the  aristoc- 
racy ;  but  the  idle  and  voluptuous  life  which  marked 
that  order  had  no  charms  for  a  mind  like  his.  He 
relished  better  the  strong,  unsophisticated,  and 
racy  character  of  the  yeomanry,  and  attached  him- 
self, of  choice,  to  that  body.  Born  to  an  inheritance 
then  deemed  immense,  and  with  a  decided  taste 
for  literature  and  science,  it  would  not  have  been 
surprising  if  he  had  devoted  himself,  exclusively, 
to  the  luxury  of  his  studies,  and  left  the  toils  and 
the  hazards  of  public  action  to  others. 

But  he  was  naturally  ardent  and  fond  of  action, 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson  xi 

and  of  action,  too,  on  a  great  scale;  and  so  readily 
did  he  kindle  in  the  feelings  that  were  playing 
around  him,  that  he  could  no  more  have  stood  still 
while  his  country  was  agitated,  than  the  war  horse 
can  sleep  under  sound  of  the  trumpet.  He  was  a 
republican  and  a  philanthropist  from  the  earliest 
dawn  of  his  character.  He  read  with  a  sort  of  poetic 
illusion,  which  identified  him  with  every  scene 
that  his  author  spread  before  him.  Enraptured 
with  the  brighter  ages  of  republican  Greece  and 
Rome,  he  had  followed,  with  an  aching  heart,  the 
march  of  history  which  had  told  him  of  the  desola- 
tion of  those  fairest  portions  of  the  earth;  and  had 
seen,  with  dismay  and  indignation,  that  swarm  of 
monarchies,  the  progeny  of  the  Scandinavian  hive, 
under  which  genius  and  liberty  were  now  every- 
where crushed.  He  loved  his  own  country  with  a 
passion  not  less  intense,  deep,  and  holy,  than  that 
of  his  great  compatriot :  and  with  this  love  he  com- 
bined an  expanded  philanthropy  which  encircled 
the  globe.  From  the  working  of  the  strong  energies 
within  him,  there  arose  an  early  vision,  too,  which 
cheered  his  youth  and  accompanied  him  through 
life — the  vision  of  emancipated  man  throughout  the 
world.  Nor  was  this  a  dream  of  the  morning  that 
passed  away  and  was  forgotten.  On  the  contrary, 
like  the  heaven-descended  banner  of  Constantine,  he 
hailed  it  as  an  omen  of  certain  victory,  and  girded  his 
loins  for  the  onset,  with  the  omnipotence  of  truth. 
On  his    early  studies   we  have   already  touched. 


xii  Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

The  study  of  the  law  he  pursued  under  George 
Wythe:  a  man  of  Roman  stamp,  in  Rome's  best 
age.  Here  he  acquired  that  unrivaled  neatness, 
system,  and  method  in  business,  which,  through 
all  his  future  life,  and  in  every  office  that  he  filled, 
gave  him,  in  effect,  the  hundred  hands  of  Briareus; 
here,  too,  following  the  giant  step  of  his  master,  he 
traveled  the  whole  round  of  the  civil  and  common 
law.  From  the  same  example,  he  caught  that 
untiring  spirit  of  investigation  which  never  left  a 
subject  till  he  had  searched  it  to  the  bottom,  and 
of  which  we  have  so  noble  a  specimen  in  his  corre- 
spondence with  Mr.  Hammond,  on  the  subject  of 
British  debts.  In  short,  Mr.  Wythe  performed  for 
him  what  Jeremiah  Gridley  had  done  for  Mr.  Adams; 
he  placed  on  his  head  the  crown  of  legal  prepara- 
tion: and  well  did  it  become  him.  Permit  me, 
here,  to  correct  an  error  which  seems  to  have  pre- 
vailed. It  has  been  thought  that  Mr.  Jefferson 
made  no  figure  at  the  bar:  but  the  case  was  far 
otherwise.  There  are  still  extant,  in  his  own  fair 
and  neat  hand,  in  the  manner  of  his  master,  a  num- 
ber of  arguments  which  were  delivered  by  him  at 
the  bar  upon  some  of  the  most  intricate  questions 
of  the  law;  which,  if  they  shall  ever  see  the  light, 
will  vindicate  his  claim  to  the  first  honors  of  the 
profession.  It  is  true  he  was  not  distinguished  in 
popular  debate;  why  he  was  not  so,  has  often  been 
matter  of  surprise  to  those  who  have  seen  his  elo- 
quence on  paper  and  heard  it  in  conversation,    He 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson  xiii 

had  all  the  attributes  of  the  mind  and  the  heart 
and  the  soul,  which  are  essential  to  eloquence  of 
the  highest  order.  The  only  defect  was  a  physical 
one:  he  wanted  volume  and  compass  of  voice  for 
a  large  deliberative  assembly;  and  his  voice,  from 
the  excess  of  his  sensibility,  instead  of  rising  with 
his  feelings  and  conceptions,  sunk  under  their 
pressure  and  became  guttural  and  inarticulate.  The 
consciousness  of  this  infirmity  repressed  any  attempt 
in  a  large  body  in  which  he  knew  he  must  fail.  But 
his  voice  was  all-sufficient  for  the  purposes  of  judicial 
debate;  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that,  if  the 
service  of  his  country  had  not  called  him  away  so 
soon  from  his  profession,  his  fame  as  a  lawyer  would 
now  have  stood  upon  the  same  distinguished  ground 
which  he  confessedly  occupies  as  a  statesman,  an 
author,  and  a  scholar. 

It  was  not  until  1764,  when  the  Parliament  of 
Great  Britain  passed  its  resolutions  preparatory  to 
the  Stamp  Act,  that  Virginia  seems  to  have  been 
thoroughly  startled  from  her  repose.  Her  legisla- 
ture was  then  in  session;  and  her  patriots,  taking 
the  alarm,  remonstrated  promptly  and  firmly  against 
this  assumed  power.  The  remonstrance,  however, 
was,  as  usual,  disregarded,  and  the  Stamp  Act  came. 
But  it  came  to  meet,  on  the  floor  of  the  House,  an 
unlooked-for  champion,  whom  Heaven  had  just 
raised  up  for  the  good  of  his  country  and  of  man- 
kind. I  speak  of  that  untortured  child  of  nature, 
Patrick  Henry,  who  had  now,  for  the  first  time,  left 


N 

xiv  Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

his  native  forests  to  show  the  metal  of  which  he  was 
made,  and  "give  the  world  assurance  of  a  man." 

The  Assembly  met  in  the  city  of  Williamsburg, 
where  Mr.  Jefferson  was  still  pursuing  the  study  of 
the  law.  Mr.  Henry's  celebrated  resolutions  against 
the  Stamp  Act  were  introduced  in  May,  1765.  How 
they  were  resisted,  and  how  maintained,  has  been 
already  stated  to  the  world,  in  terms  that  have 
been  pronounced  extravagant,  by  those  who  mod- 
estly consider  themselves  as  furnishing  a  fair  stand- 
ard of  Revolutionary  excellence.  The  coldest  glow- 
worm in  the  hedge  is  about  as  fair  a  standard  of  the 
power  of  the  sun.  To  the  present  purpose,  it  is 
only  necessary  to  remark,  that  Mr.  Jefferson  was 
present  at  this  debate,  and  has  left  us  an  account 
of  it  in  his  own  words.  He  was  then,  he  says,  but  a 
student,  and  sto^d  in  the  door  of  communication 
between  the  House  and  the  lobby,  where  he  heard 
the  whole  of  this  magnificent  debate.  The  opposi- 
tion to  the  last  resolution  was  most  vehement;  the 
debate  upon  it,  to  use  his  own  strong  language, 
"most  bloody:"  but  he  adds,  torrents  of  sublime 
eloquence  from  Henry,  backed  by  the  solid  reason- 
ing of  Johnson,  prevailed;  and  the  resolution  was 
carried  by  a  single  vote.  I  well  remember,  he  con- 
tinues, the  cry  of  " treason,"  by  the  Speaker,  echoed 
from  every  part  of  the  House,  against  Mr.  Henry: 
I  well  remember  his  pa'tse,  and  the  admirable 
address  with  which  he  recovered  himself  and  baffled 
the  charge  thus  vociferated. 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson  xv 

He  here  alludes,  as  you  must  perceive,  to  that 
memorable  exclamation  of  Mr.  Henry,  now  become 
almost  too  familiar  for  quotation:  "  Caesar  had  his 
Brutus,  Charles  the  First  his  Cromwell,  and  George 
the  Third  ('Treason!'  cried  the  Speaker.  'Treason! 
treason!'  echoed  the  House;)  may  profit  by  their 
example.     If  this  be  treason,  make  the  most  of  it." 

While  I  am  presenting  to  you  this  picture  of 
Mr.  Jefferson  in  his  youth,  listening  to  the  almost 
superhuman  eloquence  of  Henry  on  the  great  sub- 
ject which  formed  the  hinge  of  the  American  Revo- 
lution, are  you  not  forcibly  reminded  of  the  parallel 
scene  which  had  passed  only  four  years  before  in 
the  Hall  of  Justice  in  Boston:  Mr.  Adams  catching 
from  Otis  "the  breath  of  life"?  How  close  the 
parallel,  and  how  interesting  the  incident!  Who 
can  think  of  these  two  young  men,  destined  them- 
selves to  make  so  great  a  figure  in  the  future  history 
of  their  country,  thus  lighting  the  fires  of  their  own 
genius  at  the  altars  of  Henry  and  of  Otis,  without 
being  reminded  of  another  picture,  which  had  been 
exhibited  to  us  by  an  historian  of  Rome? — the 
younger  Scipio  Africanus,  then  in  his  military  novi- 
tiate, standing  a  youthful  spectator  on  a  hill  near 
Carthage,  and  looking  down  upon  the  battlefield 
on  which  those  veteran  generals,  Hamilcar  and 
Massanissa,  were  driving,  with  so  much  glory,  the 
car  of  war!  Whether  Otis  or  Henry  first  breathed 
into  this  nation  the  breath  of  life,  (a  question 
merely  for  curious  and  friendly  speculation,)  it  is 


xvi  Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

very  certain  that  they  breathed  into  their  two 
young  hearers  that  breath  which  has  made  them 
both  immortal. 

From  this  day  forth  Mr.  Jefferson,  young  as  he 
was,  stood  forward  as  a  champion  for  his  country. 
It  was  now  in  the  fire  of  his  youth,  that  he  adopted 
those  mottos  for  his  seals,  so  well  remembered  in 
Virginia:  "Ab  eo  libertas,  a  quo  spiritus,"  and 
''Resistance  to  tyrants  is  obedience  to  God."  He 
joined  the  band  of  the  brave  who  were  for  the 
boldest  measures:  and  by  the  light,  the  contagious 
spirit  and  vigor  of  his  conversation,  as  well  as  by 
his  enchanting  and  powerful  pen,  he  contributed 
eminently  to  lift  Virginia  to  that  height  which 
placed  her  by  the  side  of  her  Northern  sister.  It 
is  an  historical  fact  well  known  to  us  all,  that  these 
two  great  States,  then  by  far  the  most  populous 
and  powerful  in  the  Union,  led  off,  as  it  was  natural 
and  fit  that  they  should  do,  all  the  strong  measures 
that  ended  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
Together,  and  stroke  for  stroke,  they  breasted  the 
angry  surge,  and  threw  it  aside  "with  hearts  of 
controversy,"  until  they  reached  that  shore  from 
which  we  now  look  back  with  so  much  pride  and 
triumph. 

It  was  in  his  thirtieth  year,  as  you  remember, 
that  Mr.  Adams  gave  to  the  world  his  first  great 
work,  the  Dissertation  on  the  Canon  and  Feudal 
Law;  and  it  was  about  the  same  period  of  his  life, 
that  Mr.  Jefferson  produced  his  first  great  political 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson         xvii 

work,  "A  Summary  View  of  the  Rights  of  British 
America/ '  The  history  of  this  work  is  somewhat 
curious  and  interesting,  and  I  give  it  to  you  on  the 
authority  of  Mr.  Jefferson  himself.  He  had  been 
elected  a  member  of  that  State  Convention  of  Vir- 
ginia which,  in  August,  1774,  appointed  the  first 
Delegates  to  the  Continental  Congress.  Arrested 
by  sickness  on  his  way  to  Williamsburg,  he  sent 
forward,  to  be  laid  on  the  table,  a  draught  of  instruc- 
tions to  the  Delegates  whom  Virginia  should  send. 
This  was  read  by  the  members,  and  they  published 
it,  under  the  title  of  "A  Summary  View  of  the 
Rights  of  British  America."  A  copy  of  this  work 
having  found  its  way  to  England,  it  received  from 
the  pen  of  the  celebrated  Burke  such  alterations  as 
adapted  it  to  the  purposes  of  the  opposition  there, 
and  it  there  reappeared  in  a  new  edition ;  an  honor 
which,  as  Mr.  Jefferson  afterwards  learned,  occa- 
sioned the  insertion  of  his  name  in  a  bill  of  attainder, 
which,  however,  never  saw  the  light.  So  far  Mr. 
Jefferson.  Let  me  add,  that  the  old  inhabitants 
of  Williamsburg,  a  few  years  back,  well  remembered 
the  effect  of  that  work  of  Lord  Dunmore,  then  the 
royal  Governor  of  the  State.  His  fury  broke  out  in 
the  most  indecent  and  unmitigated  language.  Mr. 
Jefferson's  name  was  marked  high  on  his  list  of 
proscription,  and  the  victim  was  only  reprieved 
until  the  rebellion  should  be  crushed;  but  that 
rebellion  became  revolution,  and  the  high  priest 
of   the   meditated  sacrifice    was   sent  to  howl  his 


xviii        Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

disappointment  to  the  hills  and  winds  of  his  native 
Scotland. 

In  the  next  year,  1775,  Mr.  Jefferson  young  as 
he  was,  was  singled  out  by  the  Virginia  legislature 
to  answer  Lord  North's  famous  "  conciliatory  propo- 
sition," called,  in  the  language  of  the  day,  his  "  olive 
branch."  But  it  was  an  olive  branch  that  hid  the 
guileful  serpent,  or,  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Adams, 
" it  was  an  asp  in  a  basket  of  flowers."  The  answer 
stands  upon  the  records  of  the  country.  Cool, 
calm,  close,  full  of  compressed  energy  and  keen 
sagacity,  while  at  the  same  time  it  preserves  the 
most  perfect  decorum,  it  is  one  of  the  most  nervous 
and  manly  productions  even  of  that  age  of  men. 

The  second  Congress  met  on  the  10th  of  May, 
1775.  Mr.  Adams  was,  of  course,  again  a  member. 
Mr.  Jefferson  having  been  deputed,  contingently, 
(to  supply  the  place  of  Peyton  Randolph,)  did  not 
take  his  seat  at  the  commencement  of  the  session. 
Of  the  political  works  of  this  Congress,  as  well  as 
of  the  preceding,  their  petitions,  memorials,  remon- 
strances, to  the  throne,  to  the  Parliament,  to  the 
people  of  England,  of  Ireland,  and  of  Canada,  I  have 
forborne  to  speak,  because  they  are  familiar  to  you 
all.  Let  us  suffice  to  say,  that  in  the  estimation 
of  so  great  a  judge  as  Lord  Chatham,  they  were 
such  as  had  never  been  surpassed  even  in  the  States 
of  the  world,  in  ancient  Greece  and  Rome;  and 
although  they  produced  no  good  effect  on  the 
unhappy  monarch  of   Britain;     though   Pharaoh's 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson         xix 

heart  was  hardened  so  that  they  moved  not  him, 
they  moved  all  heaven  and  all  earth  besides,  and 
opened  a  passage  for  our  fathers  through  the  great 
deep.  The  plot  of  the  awful  drama  now  began  to 
thicken. 

The  sword  had  been  drawn.  The  battles  of  Lex- 
ington and  Concord  had  been  fought;  and  Warren, 
the  rose  of  American  chivalry,  had  been  cut  down, 
in  his  bloom,  on  that  hill  which  his  death  has  hal- 
lowed. The  blood  which  had  been  shed  in  Massa- 
chusetts cried  from  the  ground  in  every  quarter 
of  the  Union.  Congress  heard  that  cry,  and  resolved 
on  war.  Troops  were  ordered  to  be  raised.  A 
commander-in-chief  came  to  be  appointed,  and 
General  Ward,  of  Massachusetts,  was  put  in  nomina- 
tion. Here  we  have  an  incident  in  the  life  of  Mr. 
Adams  most  strikingly  characteristic  of  the  man. 
Giving  to  the  winds  all  local  prepossessions,  and 
looking  only  to  the  cause  that  filled  his  soul,  the 
cause  of  his  country,  he  prompted  and  sustained 
the  nomination  of  that  patriot  hero  whom  the 
Almighty,  in  His  goodness,  had  formed  for  the  occa- 
sion. Washington  was  elected,  and  the  choice  was 
ratified  in  heaven.  He  accepted  his  commission 
on  the  very  day  on  which  the  soul  of  Warren  winged 
its  flight  from  Bunker  Hill,  and  well  did  he  avenge 
the  death  of  that  youthful  hero. 

Five  days  after  General  Washington's  appoint- 
ment, Mr.  Jefferson,  for  the  first  time,  took  his  seat 
as  a  member  of  Congress;    and  here,  for  the  first 


xx  Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

time,  met  the  two  illustrious  men  whom  we  are 
endeavoring  to  commemorate.  They  met,  and  at 
once  became  friends — to  part  no  more,  but  for  a 
short  season,  and  then  to  be  reunited,  both  for 
time  and  eternity. 

There  was  now  open  war  between  Great  Britain 
and  her  colonies.  Yet  the  latter  looked  no  farther 
than  resistance  to  the  specific  power  of  the  parent 
country  to  tax  them  at  pleasure.  A  dissolution  of 
the  Union  had  not  yet  been  contemplated,  either 
by  Congress  or  the  nation;  and  many  of  those  who 
had  voted  for  the  war,  would  have  voted,  and  did 
afterwards  vote,  against  that  dissolution. 

Such  was  the  state  of  things  under  which  the 
Congress  of  1776  assembled,  when  Adams  and  Jeffer- 
son again  met.  It  was,  as  you  know,  in  this  Con- 
gress, that  the  question  of  American  Independence 
came,  for  the  first  time,  to  be  discussed;  and  never, 
certainly,  has  a  more  momentous  question  been 
discussed  in  any  age  or  in  any  country;  for  it  was 
fraught  not  only  with  the  destinies  of  this  wide 
extended  continent,  but  as  the  event  has  shown, 
and  is  still  showing,  with  the  destinies  of  man  all 
over  the  world. 

How  fearful  that  question  then  was,  no  one  can 
tell  but  those  who,  forgetting  all  that  had  since 
passed,  can  transport  themselves  back  to  the  time, 
and  plant  their  feet  on  the  ground  which  those 
patriots  then  occupied. 

"Shadows,   clouds,   and  darkness"  then  covered 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson  xxi 

all  the  future,  and  the  present  was  full  only  of 
danger  and  terror.  A  more  unequal  contest  never 
was  proposed.  It  was,  indeed,  as  it  was  then  said 
to  be,  the  shepherd  boy  of  Israel  going  forth  to 
battle  against  the  giant  of  Gath;  and  there  was  yet 
among  us,  enough  to  tremble  when  they  heard  that 
giant  say,  "Come  to  me,  and  I  will  give  thy  flesh 
to  the  fowls  of  the  air  and  the  beasts  of  the  field.' ' 
But  there  were  those  who  never  trembled — who 
knew  that  there  was  a  God  in  Israel,  and  who  were 
willing  to  commit  their  cause  "to  His  even-handed 
justice,"  and  His  Almighty  power.  That  their  great 
trust  was  in  Him,  is  manifest  from  the  remarks  that 
were  continually  breaking  from  the  lips  of  the 
patriots.  Thus,  the  patriot  Hawley,  when  pressed 
upon  the  inequality  of  the  contest,  could  only 
answer,  "We  must  put  to  sea — Providence  will 
bring  us  into  port;"  and  Patrick  Henry,  when 
urged  upon  the  same  topic,  exclaimed,  "True, 
true;  but  there  is  a  God  above,  who  rules  and  over- 
rules the  destinies  of  nations." 

Amid  this  appalling  array  that  surrounded  them, 
the  first  to  enter  the  breach,  sword  in  hand,  was 
John  Adams — the  vision  of  his  youth  at  his  heart, 
and  his  country  in  every  nerve.  On  the  sixth  of 
May,  he  offered  in  committee  of  the  whole  the  sig- 
nificant resolution  that  the  colonies  should  form 
governments  independent  of  the  crown.  This  was 
the   harbinger   of   more   important   measures,    and 

seems  to  have  been  put  forward  to  feel  the  pulse 
vol,  xhj—c 


xxii         Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

of  the  House.  The  resolution,  after  a  bloody  strug- 
gle, was  adopted  on  the  15th  day  of  May  following0 
On  the  7th  of  June,  by  previous  concert,  Richard 
Henry  Lee  moved  the  great  resolution  of  Inde- 
pendence, and  was  seconded  by  John  Adams;  and 
"then  came  the  tug  of  war."  The  debate  upon  it 
was  continued  from  the  7th  to  the  10th,  when  the 
further  consideration  of  it  was  postponed  to  the 
1  st  of  July,  and  at  the  same  time  a  committee  of 
five  was  appointed  to  prepare,  provisionally,  a 
draught  of  a  Declaration  of  Independence.  At  the 
head  of  this  important  committee,  which  was  then 
appointed  by  a  vote  of  the  House,  although  he  was 
probably  the  youngest  member,  and  one  of  the 
youngest  men  in  the  House,  (for  he  had  served 
only  part  of  the  former  session,  and  was  but  thirty- 
two  years  of  age,)  stands  the  name  of  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son— Mr.  Adams  stands  next.  And  these  two  gen- 
tlemen having  been  deputed  a  sub-committee  to 
prepare  the  draught,  that  draught,  at  Mr.  Adams' 
earnest  importunity,  was  prepared  by  his  more 
youthful  friend.  Of  this  transaction  Mr.  Adams 
is  himself  the  historian,  and  the  authorship  of  the 
Declaration,  though  once  disputed,  is  thus  placed 
forever  beyond  the  reach  of  question. 

The  final  debate  on  the  resolution  was  postponed, 
as  we  have  seen,  for  nearly  a  month.  In  the  mean- 
time all  who  are  conversant  with  the  course  of  action 
of  all  deliberative  bodies  know  how  much  is  done 
by  conversation  among  the  members.     It  is  not 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson        xxiii 

often,  indeed,  that  proselytes  are  made  on  great 
questions  by  public  debate.  On  such  questions, 
opinions  are  far  more  frequently  formed  in  private, 
and  so  formed  that  debate  is  seldom  known  to 
change  them.  Hence  the  value  of  the  out-of-door 
talent  of  chamber  consultation,  where  objections 
candidly  stated  are  candidly,  calmly,  and  mildly 
discussed;  where  neither  pride,  nor  shame,  nor 
anger  takes  part  in  the  discussion  nor  stands  in  the 
way  of  a  correct  conclusion;  but  where  everything 
being  conducted  frankly,  delicately,  respectfully, 
and  kindly,  the  better  cause  and  the  better  reasoner 
are  almost  always  sure  of  success. 

In  this  kind  of  service,  as  well  as  in  all  that 
depended  on  the  power  of  composition,  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son was  as  much  a  master  magician  as  his  eloquent 
friend  Adams  was  in  debate.  They  were,  in  truth, 
hemispheres  of  the  same  golden  globe,  and  required 
only  to  be  brought  and  put  together,  to  prove  that 
they  were  parts  of  the  same  heaven-formed  whole. 

On  the  present  occasion,  however,  much  still 
remained  to  be  effected  by  debate.  The  first  of 
July  came,  and  the  great  debate  on  the  resolution 
for  Independence  was  resumed,  with  fresh  spirit. 
The  discussion  was  again  protracted  for  two  days, 
which,  in  addition  to  the  former  three,  were  suffi- 
cient, in  that  age,  to  call  out  all  the  speaking  talent 
of  the  House.  Botta,  the  Italian  historian  of  our 
Revolution,  has  made  Mr.  Dickinson  and  Mr.  Lee 
the  principal  speakers  on  the  opposite  sides  of  this 


xxiv        Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

question;  and  availing  himself  of  that  dramatic 
license  of  ancient  historians,  which  the  fidelity  of 
modern  history  has  exploded,  he  has  drawn,  from 
his  own  fancy,  two  orations,  which  he  has  put  into 
the  mouths  of  those  distinguished  men.  With  no 
disposition  to  touch,  with  a  hostile  hand,  one  leaf 
of  the  well-earned  laurels  of  Mr.  Lee,  (which  every 
American  would  feel  far  more  pleasure  in  con- 
tributing to  brighten  and  to  cherish,)  and  with 
no  feelings  but  those  of  reverence  and  gratitude 
for  the  memory  of  the  other  great  patriots  who 
assisted  in  that  debate,  may  we  not  say,  and  are 
we  not  bound  in  justice  to  say  that  Botta  is  mis- 
taken in  the  relative  prominency  of  one,  at  least, 
of  his  prolocutors  ? 

Mr.  Jefferson  has  told  us  that  "the  Colossus  of 
that  Congress — the  great  pillar  of  support  to  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  its  ablest  advo- 
cate and  champion  on  the  floor  of  the  House,  was 
John  Adams."  How  he  supported  it,  can  now  be 
only  matter  of  imagination :  for  the  debate  was  con- 
ducted with  closed  doors,  and  there  was  no  reporter 
on  the  floor  to  catch  the  strains  living  as  they  rose. 
I  will  not  attempt  what  Mr.  Adams  himself,  if  he 
were  alive,  could  not  accomplish.  He  might  recall 
the  topics  of  "argument :  but  with  regard  to  those 
flashes  of  inspiration,  those  bursts  of  passion,  which 
grew  out  of  the  awful  feelings  of  the  moment,  they 
are  gone  forever,  with  the  reality  of  the  occasion: 
and  the  happiest  effort  of  fancy  to  supply  their 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson         xxv 

place,  (by  me,  at  least)  would  bear  no  better  resem- 
blance to  the  original,  than  the  petty  criminations 
of  an  artificial  volcano,  to  the  sublime  explosions 
of  thundering  ^Etna.  Waiving,  therefore,  the  exam- 
ple of  Botta,  let  it  suffice  for  us  to  know  that  in  that 
moment  of  darkness,  of  terror,  and  of  consternation, 
when  the  election  was  to  be  made  between  an  attempt 
at  liberty  and  independence  on  the  one  hand,  and 
defeat,  subjugation,  and  death  on  the  other,  the 
courage  of  Adams,  in  the  true  spirit  of  heroism, 
rose  in  proportion  to  the  dangers  that  pressed 
around  him;  and  that  he  poured  forth  that  only 
genuine  eloquence,  the  eloquence  of  the  soul,  which, 
in  the  language  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  "  moved  his  hearers 
from  their  seats."  The  objections  of  his  adver- 
saries were  seen  no  longer  but  in  a  state  of  wreck; 
floating,  in  broken  fragments,  on  the  billows  of 
the  storm:  and  over  rocks,  over  breakers,  and  amid 
ingulfing  whirlpools,  that  everywhere  surrounded 
him,  he  brought  the  gallant  ship  of  the  nation  safe 
into  port. 

It  was  on  the  evening  of  the  day  on  which  this 
great  victory  was  achieved,  (before  which,  in  moral 
grandeur,  the  trophies  of  Marengo  and  the  Nile  fade 
away,)  and  while  his  mind  was  yet  rolling  with  the 
agitation  of  the  recent  tempest,  that  he  wrote  that 
letter  to  the  venerable  partner  of  his  bosom,  which 
has  now  become  matter  of  history;  in  which,  after 
announcing  the  adoption  of  the  resolution,  he  fore- 
tells the  future  glories  of  his  country,  and  the  honors 


xxvi        Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

with  which  the  returning  anniversary  of  her  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  would  be  hailed,  till  time 
should  be  no  more.  That  which  strikes  us  on  the 
first  perusal  of  this  letter,  is,  the  prophetic  char- 
acter with  which  it  is  stamped,  and  the  exactness 
with  which  its  predictions  have  been  fulfilled.  But 
his  biographer  will  remark  in  it  another  character: 
the  deep  political  calculations  of  results,  through 
which  the  mind  of  the  writer,  according  to  its  habit, 
had  flashed;  and  the  firm  and  undoubting  confi- 
dence with  which,  in  spite  of  those  appearances  that 
alarmed  and  misled  weaker  minds,  he  looked  to  the 
triumphant  close  of  the  struggle. 

The  resolution  having  been  carried,  the  draught 
of  the  Declaration  came  to  be  examined  in  detail; 
and  so  faultless  had  it  issued  from  the  hands  of  its 
author,  that  it  was  adopted  as  he  had  prepared  it, 
pruned  only  of  a  few  of  its  brightest  inherent  beau- 
ties, through  a  prudent  deference  to  some  of  the 
States.  It  was  adopted  about  noon  of  the  Fourth, 
and  proclaimed  to  an  exulting  nation  on  the  evening 
of  the  same  day. 

That  brave  and  animated  band  who  signed  it — 
where  are  they  now?  What  heart  does  not  sink  at 
the  question?  One  only  survives:  Charles  Carroll, 
of  Carrollton — a  noble  specimen  of  the  age  that  is 
gone  by,  and  now  the  single  object  of  that  age,  on 
whom  the  veneration  and  prayers  of  his  country 
are  concentrated.  The  rest  have  bequeathed  to  us 
the  immortal  record  of  their  virtue  and  patriotism, 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson       xxvii 

and  have  ascended  to  a  brighter  reward  than  man 
can  confer. 

Of  that  instrument  to  which  you  listen  with 
reverence  on  every  returning  anniversary  of  its  adop- 
tion, "  which  forms  the  ornament  of  our  halls,  and 
the  first  political  lesson  of  our  children,"  it  is  needless 
to  speak..  You  know  that  in  its  origin  and  object 
it  was  a  statement  of  the  causes  which  had  com- 
pelled our  fathers  to  separate  themselves  from  Great 
Britain,  and  to  declare  these  States  free  and  inde- 
pendent. It  was  the  voice  of  the  American  nation 
addressing  herself  to  the  other  nations  of  the  earth ; 
and  the  address  is,  in  all  respects,  worthy  of  this 
noble  personification.  It  is  the  great  argument  of 
America  in  vindication  of  her  course;  and  as  Mr. 
Adams  had  been  the  Colossus  of  the  cause  on  the 
floor  of  Congress,  his  illustrious  friend,  the  author 
of  this  instrument,  may  well  be  pronounced  to  have 
been  its  Colossus  on  the  theatre  of  the  world. 

The  decisive  step  which  fixed  the  destiny  of  the 
nation  had  now  been  taken:  and  that  step  was 
irrevocable.  "The  die  was  now  indeed  cast.  The 
Rubicon  had  been  crossed,"  effectually,  finally,  for- 
ever. There  was  no  return  but  to  chains,  to  slavery, 
and  death.  No  such  backward  step  was  medi- 
tated by  the  firm  hearts  that  led  on  the  march  of 
the  nation;  but,  confiding  in  the  justice  of  Heaven 
and  the  final  triumph  of  truth,  they  moved  forward 
in  solid  phalanx  and  with  martial  step,  regardless 
of  the  tempest  that  was  breaking  around  them. 


xxviii      Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

Their  confidence  in  the  favor  and  protection  of 
Heaven,  however,  strong  and  unshaken  as  it  was, 
did  not  dispose  them  to  relax  their  own  exertions, 
nor  to  neglect  the  earthly  means  of  securing  their 
triumph.  They  were  not  of  the  number  of  those 
who  call  upon  Hercules,  and  put  not  their  own 
shoulders  to  the  wheel.  Our  adversary  was  one 
of  the  most  powerful  nations  on  earth.  Our  whole 
strength  consisted  of  a  few  stout  hearts  and  a  good 
cause.  But  we  were  wofully  deficient  in  all  the 
sinews  of  war:  we  wanted  men,  we  wanted  arms, 
we  wanted  money;  and  these  could  be  procured 
only  from  abroad.  But  the  intervening  ocean  was 
covered  with  the  fleets  of  the  enemy;  and  the 
patriot  Laurens,  one  of  their  captives,  was  already 
a  prisoner  in  the  Tower  of  London.  Who  was  there 
to  undertake  this  perilous  service?  He  who  was 
ever  ready  to  peril  any  service  in  the  cause  of  his 
country:  John  Adams.  Congress  knew  their  man, 
and  did  not  hesitate  on  the  choice.  Appointed  a 
minister  to  France,  he  promptly  obeyed  the  sacred 
call,  and,  with  a  brave  and  fearless  heart,  he  ran 
the  gantlet  through  the  hostile  fleet,  and  arrived 
in  safety.  Passing  from  court  to  court,  he  pleaded 
the  cause  of  his  country  with  all  the  resistless  energy 
of  truth ;  and  availing  himself  adroitly  of  the  selfish 
passions  and  interests  of  those  courts,  he  ceased 
not  to  ply  his  efforts  with  matchless  dexterity,  until 
the  objects  of  his  mission  were  completely  attained. 
With  the  exception  of  one  short  interval  of  a  return 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson        xxix 

home  in  1779,  when  he  aided  in  giving  form  to  the 
Constitution  of  his  native  State,  he  remained  abroad 
in  France,  in  Holland — wherever  he  could  be  most 
useful — in  the  strenuous,  faithful  and  successful 
service  of  his  country,  receiving  repeated  votes  of 
thanks  from  Congress,  till  the  storm  was  over,  and 
peace  and  liberty  came  to  crown  his  felicity  and 
realize  the  cherished  vision  of  his  youth. 

Mr.  Jefferson  meanwhile  was  not  less  strenuously 
and  successfully  engaged  at  home  in  forwarding  and 
confirming  the  great  objects  of  the  Revolution  and 
making  it  a  revolution  of  mind  as  well  as  of  govern- 
ment. Marking,  with  that  sagacity  which  distin- 
guished him,  the  series  of  inventions  by  which  tyr- 
anny had  contrived  to  tutor  the  mind  to  subjection, 
and  educate  it  in  habits  of  servile  subordination,  he 
proceeded,  in  Virginia,  with  the  aid  of  Pendleton 
and  Wythe,  to  break  off  the  manacles,  one  by  one, 
and  deliver  the  imprisoned  intellect  from  this 
debasing  sorcery.  The  law  of  entails,  that  feudal 
contrivance  to  foster  and  nourish  a  vicious  aristoc- 
racy at  the  expense  of  the  community,  had,  at  a 
previous  period,  been  broken  up,  on  their  sugges- 
tion; and  property  was  left  to  circulate  freely,  and 
impart  health  and  vigor  to  the  operations  of  society. 
The  law  of  primogeniture,  that  other  feudal  con- 
trivance to  create  and  keep  up  an  artificial  inequality 
among  men  whom  their  Creator  had  made  equal, 
was  now  repealed,  and  the  parent  and  his  children 
were  restored  to  their  natural  relation,    And,  above 


xxx  Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

all,  that  daring  usurpation  on  the  rights  of  the 
Creator,  as  well  as  the  creature,  which  presumes  to 
dictate  to  man  what  he  shall  believe,  and  in  what 
form  he  shall  offer  the  worship  of  his  heart,  and  this, 
too,  for  the  vile  purpose  of  strengthening  the  hands 
of  a  temporal  tyrant,  by  feeding  and  pampering  the 
tools  of  his  power,  was  indignantly  demolished,  and 
the  soul  was  restored  to  its  free  communion  with 
the  God  who  gave  it. 

The  preamble  to  the  bill  establishing  religious 
freedom  in  Virginia,  is  one  of  the  most  morally  sub- 
lime of  human  productions.  By  its  great  author 
it  was  always  esteemed  as  one  of  his  happiest  efforts, 
and  the  measure  itself  one  of  his  best  services,  as  the 
short  and  modest  epitaph  left  by  him  attests. 
Higher  praise  cannot  and  need  not  be  given  to  it, 
than  to  say,  it  is  in  all  respects  worthy  of  the  pen 
which  wrote  the  Declaration  of  Independence: 
that  it  breathes  the  same  lofty  and  noble  spirit, 
and  is  a  fit  companion  for  that  immortal  instrument. 

The  legislative  enactments  that  have  been  men- 
tioned, form  a  small  part  only  of  an  entire  revision 
of  the  laws  of  Virginia.  The  collection  of  bills 
passed  by  these  great  men,  (one  hundred  and 
twenty-six  (126)  in  number,)  presents  a  system 
of  jurisprudence  so  comprehensive,  profound,  and 
beautiful,  so  perfectly,  so  happily  adapted  to  the  new 
state  of  things,  that,  if  its  authors  had  never  done 
anything  else,  impartial  history  would  have  assigned 
them  a  place  by  the  side  of  Solon  and  Lycurgus. 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson        xxxi 

In  1779,  Mr.  Jefferson  was  called  to  assume  the 
helm  of  government  in  Virginia  in  succession  to 
Patrick  Henry.  He  took  that  helm  at  the  moment 
when  war,  for  the  first  time,  had  entered  the  limits 
of  the  commonwealth.  With  what  strength,  fidelity 
and  ability  he  held  it,  under  the  most  trying  circum- 
stances, the  highest  testimonials  now  stand  on  the 
journals  of  Congress,  as  well  as  those  of  Virginia. 

It  is  true  that  a  poor  attempt  was  made,  in  after 
times,  to  wound  the  honor  of  his  administration. 
But  he  bore  a  charmed  character;  and  this,  like 
every  other  blow  that  has  ever  been  aimed  at  it, 
only  recoiled  to  crush  his  accuser,  and  to  leave  him 
the  brighter  and  stronger  for  the  assault. 

In  1 78 1  his  alert  and  active  mind,  which  watched 
the  rising  character  of  his  new-born  country,  with 
all  the  jealous  vigilance  of  an  anxious  father,  found 
a  new  occasion  to  call  him  into  the  intellectual  field. 
Our  country  was  yet  but  imperfectly  known  in 
Europe.  Its  face,  its  soil,  its  physical  capacities, 
its  animals  and  even  the  men  who  inhabited  it, 
were  so  little  known,  as  to  have  furnished  to  phi- 
losophers abroad  a  theme  of  unfounded  and  degrad- 
ing speculation.  Those  visionaries,  dreaming  over 
theories  which  they  wanted  the  means  or  the  inclina- 
tion to  confront  with  facts,  had  advanced,  among 
others,  the  fantastic  notion  that  even  man  degener- 
ated by  transplantation  to  America.  To  refute 
this  insolent  position,  and  to  place  his  country 
before  Europe  and  the  world  on  the  elevated  ground 


xxxii       Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

she  was  entitled  to  hold,  the  '  'Notes  on  Virginia"  were 
prepared  and  published.  He  there  pointed  to  Wash- 
ington, to  Franklin,  and  to  Rittenhouse,  as  being 
alone  sufficient  to  exterminate  this  heresy;  and  we 
may  now  point  to  Jefferson  and  to  Adams,  as  suffi- 
cient to  annihilate  it.  This  pure  and  proud  offer- 
ing on  the  altar  of  his  country,  the  "  Notes  on  Vir- 
ginia," honored  its  author  abroad  not  less  than  at 
home;  and  when,  shortly  afterwards,  the  public 
service  called  him  to  Europe,  it  gave  him  a  prompt 
and  distinguished  passport  into  the  highest  circles 
of  science  and  literature. 

Thus  actively  and  usefully  employed  in  guarding 
the  fame  and  advancing  the  honor  and  happiness 
of  his  country,  the  War  of  the  Revolution  came  to 
its  close;  and  on  the  19th  of  October,  1781,  of 
which  this  day  is  the  anniversary,  Great  Britain 
bowed  to  the  ascendancy  of  our  cause.  Her  last 
effective  army  struck  her  standard  on  the  heights 
of  York,  and  peace  and  independence  came  to  bless 
our  land.  Mr.  Adams  was  still  abroad  when  this 
great  consummation  of  his  early  hopes  took  place; 
and,  although  the  war  was  over,  a  difficult  task 
still  remained  to  be  performed.  The  terms  of  peace 
were  yet  to  be  arranged,  and  to  be  arranged  under 
circumstances  of  the  most  complicated  embarrass- 
ment. 

That  the  acknowledgment  of  our  independence 
was  to  be  its  first  and  indispensable  condition,  was 
well  understood;  and  Mr.  Adams,  then  at  the  Hague, 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson      xxxiii 

with  that  decision  which  always  marked  his  char- 
acter, refused  to  leave  his  post  and  take  part  in  the 
negotiation  at  Paris,  until  the  powers  of  the  British 
Commissioner  should  be  so  enlarged  as  to  authorize 
him  to  make  that  acknowledgment  unequivocally. 
I  will  not  detain  you  by  a  rehearsal  of  what  you  so 
well  know,  the  difficulties  and  intricacies  by  which 
this  negotiation  was  protracted.  Suffice  it  to  say, 
that  the  firmness  and  skill  of  the  American  Com- 
missioners triumphed  on  every  point.  The  treaty 
of  peace  was  executed;  and  the  last  seal  was  thus 
put  to  the  independence  of  these  States. 

Thus  closed  the  great  drama  of  the  American 
Revolution.  And  here  for  a  moment  let  us  pause. 
If  the  services  of  our  departed  fathers  had  closed 
at  this  point,  as  it  did  with  many  of  their  com- 
patriots— with  too  many,  if  the  wishes  and  prayers 
of  their  country  could  have  averted  it — what  obli- 
gations, what  honors,  should  we  not  owe  to  their 
memories!  What  would  not  the  world  owe  to  them! 
But,  as  if  they  had  not  already  done  enough,  as  if, 
indeed,  they  had  done  nothing,  while  anything  yet 
remained  to  be  done,  they  were  ready  with  reno- 
vated youth  and  elastic  step,  to  take  a  new  start 
in  the  career  of  their  emancipated  country. 

The  Federal  Constitution  was  adopted,  and  a  new 
leaf  was  turned  in  the  history  of  man.  With  what 
characters  the  page  should  be  inscribed — whether 
it  should  open  a  great  era  of  permanent  good  to 
the  human  family,  or  pass  away  like  a  portent  of 


xxxiv       Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

direful  evil,  was  now  to  depend  on  the  wisdom  and 
virtue  of  America.  At  this  time  our  two  great 
patriots  were  both  abroad  in  the  public  service: 
Mr.  Adams  in  England,  where  in  1787  he  refuted, 
by  his  great  work,  "The  Defence  of  the  American 
Constitutions, ' '  the  wild  theories  of  Turgot,  DeMalby, 
and  Price;  and  Mr.  Jefferson  in  France,  where  he 
was  presenting  in  his  own  person  a  living  and 
splendid  refutation  of  the  notion  of  degeneracy  in 
the  American  man.  On  the  adoption  of  the  Federal 
Constitution,  they  were  both  called  home,  to  lend 
the  weight  of  their  character  and  talents  to  this 
new  and  momentous  experiment  on  the  capacity 
of  man  for  self-government.  Mr.  Adams  was  called 
to  fill  the  second  office  under  the  new  government, 
the  first  having  been  justly  conferred  by  the  rule 
"deter  fortiori";  and  Mr.  Jefferson  to  take  the 
direction  of  the  highest  Executive  Department. 
The  office  of  Vice-President  afforded,  as  you  are 
aware,  no  scope  for  the  public  display  of  talent.  But 
the  leisure  which  is  allowed  enabled  Mr.  Adams  to 
pour  out,  from  his  full-fraught  mind,  another  great 
political  work,  his  Discourses  on  Davilla;  and 
while  he  presided  over  the  Senate  with  unexception- 
able dignity  and  propriety,  President  Washington 
always  found  in  him  an  able  and  honest  adviser,  in 
whom  his  confidence  was  implicit  and  unbounded. 

Mr.  Jefferson  had  a  theatre  that  called  for  action. 
The  Department  of  State  was  now,  for  the  first,  to 
be  organized.     Its  operations  were  all  to  be  moulded 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson       xxxv 

into  system,  and  an  intellectual  character  was  to  be 
given  to  it,  as  well  as  the  government  to  which  it 
belonged,  before  this  nation  and  before  the  world. 

The  frequent  calls  made  by  Congress  for  reports 
on  the  most  abstruse  questions  of  science  connected 
with  government,  and  on  those  vast  and  novel  and 
multifarious  subjects  of  political  economy,  peculiar 
to  this  wide  extended  and  diversified  continent: 
discussions  with  the  ministers  of  foreign  govern- 
ments, more  especially  with  those  of  France  and 
England  and  Spain,  on  those  great  and  agitating 
questions  of  international  law,  which  were  then 
continually  arising;  and  instructions  to  our  own 
ministers  abroad,  resident  at  the  courts  of  the 
great  belligerent  powers,  and  who  had  conse- 
quently the  most  delicate  and  discordant  interests 
to  manage ;  presented  a  series  of  labors  for  the  mind, 
which  few,  very  few  men  in  this  or  any  other  coun- 
try could  have  sustained  with  reputation.  How 
Mr.  Jefferson  acquitted  himself  you  all  know. 

It  is  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  his  character  to 
have  discharged  the  duties  of  every  office  to  which 
he  was  called,  with  such  exact,  appropriate,  and 
felicitous  ability,  that  he  seemed,  for  the  time,  to 
have  been  born  for  that  alone. 

As  an  evidence  of  the  unanimous  admiration  of 
the  matchless  skill  and  talent  with  which  he  dis- 
charged the  duties  of  this  office,  I  hope  it  may  be 
mentioned,  without  awaking  any  asperity  of  feeling, 
that  when,  at  a  subsequent  period,  he  was  put  in 


xxxvi      Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

nomination  by  his  friends  for  the  office  of  President, 
his  adversaries  publicly  objected — "that  nature 
had  made  him  only  for  a  Secretary  of  State." 

President  Washington  having  set  the  great  exam- 
ple, which  has  ingrafted  on  the  Constitution  as 
firmly  as  if  it  had  formed  one  of  its  express  pro- 
visions, the  principle  of  retiring  from  the  office  of 
President  at  the  end  of  eight  years,  Mr.  Adams 
succeeded  him,  and  Mr.  Jefferson  followed  Mr. 
Adams  in  the  office  of  Vice-President. 

Mr.  Adams  came  into  the  office  of  President  at 
a  time  of  great  commotion,  produced  chiefly  by 
the  progress  of  the  revolution  in  France,  and  those 
strong  sympathies  which  it  naturally  generated 
here.  The  spirit  of  party  was  high,  and  in  the 
feverish  excitement  of  the  day  much  was  said  and 
done,  on  both  sides,  which  the  voice  of  impartial 
history,  if  it  shall  descend  to  such  details,  will 
unquestionably  condemn,  and  which  the  candid 
and  the  good  on  both  sides  lived,  themselves,  to 
regret.    . 

One  incident  I  will  mention,  because  it  is  equally 
honorable  to  both  the  great  men  whom  we  are 
uniting  in  these  obsequies.  In  Virginia,  where  the 
opposition  ran  high,  the  younger  politicians  of  the 
day,  taking  their  tone  from  the  public  journals, 
have,  on  more  occasions  than  one,  in  the  presence 
of  Mr.  Jefferson,  imputed  to  Mr.  Adams  a  concealed 
design  to  sap  the  foundations  of  the  Republic,  and 
to  supply  its  place  with  a  monarchy,  on  the  British 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson     xxxvii 

model.  The  uniform  answer  of  Mr.  Jefferson  to  this 
charge  will  never  be  forgotten  by  those  who  have 
heard  it,  and  of  whom  (as  I  have  recently  had  occa- 
sion to  prove)  there  are  many  still  living,  besides 
the  humble  individual  who  is  now  addressing  you. 
It  was  this:  "  Gentlemen,  you  do  not  know  that 
man:  There  is  not  upon  this  earth  a  more  perfectly 
honest  man  than  John  Adams.  Concealment  is  no 
part  of  his  character ;  of  that  he  is  utterly  incapa- 
ble: it  is  not  in  his  nature  to  meditate  anything 
that  he  would  not  publish  to  the  world.  The  meas- 
ures of  the  General  Government  are  a  fair  subject 
for  difference  of  opinion.  But  do  not  found  your 
opinions  on  the  notion  that  there  is  the  smallest 
spice  of  dishonesty,  moral  or  political,  in  the  char- 
acter of  John  Adams:  for  I  know  him  well,  and 
I  repeat  it,  that  a  man  more  perfectly  honest  never 
issued  from  the  hands  of  his  Creator."  And  such  is 
now,  and  has  long  been,  the  unanimous  opinion 
of  his  countrymen. 

Of  the  measures  adopted  during  his  administra- 
tion you  do  not  expect  me  to  speak.  I  should  offend 
against  your  own  sense  of  propriety,  were  I  to 
attempt  it.  We  are  here  to  mingle  together  over  the 
grave  of  the  departed  patriot,  our  feelings  of  rever- 
ence and  gratitude  for  services  whose  merit  we  all 
acknowledge:  and  cold  must  be  the  heart  which 
does  not  see  and  feel,  in  his  life,  enough  to  admire 
and  to  love,  without  striking  one  string  that  could 
produce  one  unhallowed  note. 

VOL.  XIII — D 


xxxviii    Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

History  and  biography  will  do  ample  justice  to 
every  part  of  his  character,  public  and  private ;  and 
impartial  posterity  will  correct  whatever  errors  of 
opinion  may  have  been  committed  to  his  prejudice 
by  his  contemporaries.  Let  it  suffice  for  us,  at  this 
time,  to  know,  that  he  administered  the  govern- 
ment with  a  pure,  and  honest,  and  upright  heart, 
and  that  whatever  he  advised  flowed  from  the 
master  passion  of  his  breast,  a  holy  and  all-absorb- 
ing love  for  the  happiness  and  honor  of  his  country. 

Mr.  Jefferson,  holding  the  Vice-Presidency,  did 
not  leave  even  that  negative  office,  as,  indeed,  he 
never  left  any  other,  without  marking  its  occupancy 
with  some  useful  and  permanent  vestige.  For  it 
was  during  this  term  that  he  digested  and  com- 
piled that  able  manual  which  now  gives  the  law  of 
proceeding,  not  only  to  the  two  Houses  of  Congress, 
but  to  all  the  legislatures  of  the  States  throughout 
the  Union. 

On  Mr.  Adams'  retirement,  pursuing  the  destiny 
which  seems  to  have  tied  them  together,  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son again  followed  him  in  the  office  which  he  vacated, 
the  Presidency  of  the  United  States:  and  he  had 
the  good  fortune  to  find,  or  to  make  a  smoother  sea. 
The  violence  of  the  party  storm  gradually  abated, 
and  he  was  soon  able  to  pursue  his  peaceful  course 
without  any  material  interruption.  Having  for- 
borne, for  the  obvious  reasons  which  have  been 
suggested,  to  touch  the  particulars  of  Mr.  Adams' 
administration,  the  same  forbearance,  for  the  same 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson      xxxix 

reasons,  must  be  exercised  with  regard  to  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son. But,  forbearing  details,  it  will  be  no  departure 
from  this  rule  to  state,  in  general,  the  facts:  that 
Mr.  Jefferson  continued  at  the  helm  for  eight  years, 
the  term  which  the  example  of  Washington  had 
consecrated;  that  he  so  administered  the  govern- 
ment as  to  meet  the  admiration  and  applause  of 
a  great  majority  of  his  countrymen,  as  the  over- 
whelming suffrage  at  his  second  election  attests: 
that  by  that  majority  he  was  thought  to  have  pre- 
sented a  perfect  model  of  a  republican  administra- 
tion, on  the  true  basis,  and  in  the  true  spirit  of  the 
Constitution;  and  that,  by  them  the  measures  of 
all  the  succeeding  administrations  have  been  con- 
tinually brought  to  the  standard  of  Mr.  Jefferson's, 
as  to  an  established  and  unquestionable  test,  and 
approved  or  condemned  in  proportion  to  their 
accordance  with  that  standard. 

These  are  facts  which  are  known  to  you  all. 
Another  fact  I  will  mention,  because  it  redounds 
so  highly  to  the  honor  of  his  magnanimous  and 
patriotic  rival.  It  is  this:  that  that  part  of  Mr. 
Jefferson's  administration,  and  of  his  successor 
treading  in  his  steps,  which  was  most  violently 
opposed,  the  policy  pursued  towards  the  British 
Government  subsequent  to  1806,  received  the  open, 
public  and  powerful  support  of  the  pen,  as  well  as 
the  tongue,  of  the  great  sage  of  Quincy.  The  ban- 
ished Aristides  never  gave  a  nobler  proof  of  pure 
and    disinterested    patriotism.      It  was  a  genuine 


xl  Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

emanation  from  the  altar  of  the  Revolution,  and  in 
perfect  accordance  with  the  whole  tenor  of  the  life 
of  our  illustrious  patriot  sage. 

Waiving  all  comment  on  Mr.  Jefferson's  public 
measures,  there  is  yet  a  minor  subject,  which,  stand- 
ing where  we  do,  there  seems  to  be  a  peculiar  pro- 
priety in  noticing:  for,  small  as  it  is,  it  is  strikingly 
characteristic  of  the  man,  and  we  have  an  immediate 
interest  in  the  subject.  It  is  this:  the  great  objects 
of  national  concern,  and  the  great  measures  which 
he  was  continually  projecting  and  executing  for 
the  public  good,  on  a  new  and  vast  scheme  of  policy 
wholly  his  own,  and  stamped  with  all  the  vigor  and 
grandeur  of  his  Olympic  mind,  although  they  were 
such  as  would  not  only  have  engrossed  but  over- 
whelmed almost  any  other  man,  did  not  even  give 
full  employment  to  him;  but  with  that  versatile 
and  restless  activity  which  was  prone  to  busy  itself 
usefully  and  efficaciously  with  all  around  him,  he 
found  time  to  amuse  himself  and  to  gratify  his 
natural  taste  for  the  beautiful,  by  directing  and 
overlooking  in  person,  (as  many  of  you  can  witness) 
the  improvements  and  ornaments  of  this  city  of 
the  nation:  and  it  is  to  his  taste  and  industry  that 
we  owe,  among  other  things  which  it  were  needless 
to  enumerate,  this  beautiful  avenue1  which  he  left 
in  such  order  as  to  excite  the  admiration  of  all  who 
approached  us. 

Having  closed  his  administration,  he  was  followed 

1  Pennsylvania  avenue. 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson  xli 

by  the  applause,  the  gratitude,  and  blessings  of 
his  country,  into  that  retirement  which  no  man 
was  ever  better  fitted  to  grace  and  enjoy.  And 
from  that  retirement,  together  with  his  precursor, 
the  venerable  patriarch  of  Quincy,  could  enjoy, 
that  supreme  of  all  earthly  happiness,  the  retrospect 
of  a  life  well  and  greatly  spent  in  the  service  of  his 
country  and  mankind.  The  successful  warrior,  who 
had  desolated  whole  empires  for  his  own  aggrandize- 
ment, the  successful  usurper  of  his  country's  rights 
and  liberties,  may  have  their  hours  of  swelling  pride, 
in  which  they  may  look  back  with  a  barbarous 
joy  upon  the  triumph  of  their  talents,  and  feast 
upon  the  adulation  of  the  sycophants  that  surround 
them;  but,  night  and  silence  come;  and  conscience 
takes  her  turn.  The  bloody  field  rises  upon  the 
startled  imagination.  The  shades  of  the  slaught- 
ered innocent  stalk  in  terrific  procession  before  the 
couch.  The  agonizing  cry  of  countless  widows 
and  orphans  invades  the  ear.  The  bloody  dagger 
of  the  assassin  plays,  in  airy  terror,  before  the 
vision.  Violated  liberty  lifts  her  avenging  lance, 
and  a  down-trodden  nation  rises  before  them,  in 
all  the  majesty  of  its  wrath.  What,  what  are  the 
hours  of  a  splendid  wretch  like  this,  compared  with 
those  that  shed  their  poppies  and  their  roses  upon 
the  pillows  of  our  peaceful  and  virtuous  patriots! 
Every  night  bringing  to  them  the  balm  and  health 
of  repose,  and  every  morning  offering  to  them  "their 
history  in  a  nation's  eyes!"    This,  this  it  is  to  be 


xlii  Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

greatly  virtuous:  and  be  this  the  only  ambition 
that  shall  ever  touch  an  American  bosom! 

Still  unexhausted  by  such  a  life  of  service  in  the 
cause  of  his  country,  Mr.  Jefferson  found  yet  another 
and  most  appropriate  employment  for  his  old  age: 
the  erection  of  a  seat  of  science  in  his  native  State. 
The  University  of  Virginia  is  his  work.  His,  the 
first  conception:  his,  the  whole  impulse  and  direc- 
tion; his,  the  varied  and  beautiful  architecture, 
and  the  entire  superintendence  of  its  erection:  the 
whole  scheme  of  its  studies,  its  organization,  and 
government,  are  his.  He  is  therefore,  indeed,  the 
father  of  the  University  of  Virginia.  That  it  may 
fulfill  to  the  full  extent  the  great  and  patriotic 
purposes  and  hopes  of  its  founder,  cannot  fail  to 
be  the  wish  of  every  American  bosom.  This  was  the 
last  and  crowning  labor  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  life:  a 
crown  so  poetically  appropriate,  that  fancy  might 
well  suppose  it  to  have  been  wreathed  and  placed 
on  his  brow  by  the  hand  of  the  epic  muse  herself. 

It  is  the  remark  of  one  of  the  most  elegant  writers 
of  antiquity,  in  the  beautiful  essay  which  he  has 
left  us,  "on  old  age,"  that  "to  those  who  have  not 
within  themselves  the  resources  of  living  well  and 
happily,  every  age  is  oppressive;  but  that  to  those 
who  have,  nothing  is  an  evil  which  the  necessity  of 
nature  brings  along  with  it."  How  rich  our  two 
patriots  were  in  these  internal  resources,  you  all 
know.  How  lightly  they  bore  the  burden  of  increas- 
ing years  was  apparent  from  the  cheerfulness  and 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson         xliii 

vigor  with  which,  after  having  survived  the  age  to 
which  they  properly  belonged,  they  continued  to 
live  among  their  posterity.  How  happy  they  were 
in  their  domestic  relations,  how  beloved  by  their 
neighbors  and  friends,  how  revered  and  honored 
by  their  country  and  by  the  friends  of  liberty  in 
every  quarter  of  the  world,  is  a  matter  of  open  and 
public  notoriety.  Their  houses  were  the  constant 
and  thronged  resort  of  the  votaries  of  virtue,  and 
science,  and  genius,  and  patriotism,  from  every 
portion  of  the  civilized  globe;  and  no  one  ever  left 
them  without  confessing  that  his  highest  expecta- 
tion  had  been  realized,  and  even  surpassed,  in  the 
interview. 

Of  "the  chief  of  the  Argonauts,"  as  Mr.  Jefferson 
so  classically  and  so  happily  styled  his  illustrious 
friend  of  the  North,  it  is  my  misfortune  to  be  able 
to  speak  only  by  report.  But  every  representation 
concurs,  in  drawing  the  same  pleasing  and  affecting 
picture  of  the  Roman  simplicity  in  which  that 
Father  of  his  Country  lived;  of  the  frank,  warm, 
cordial,  and  elegant  reception  that  he  gave  to  all 
who  approached  him;  of  the  interesting  kindness 
with  which  he  disbursed  the  golden  treasures  of  his 
experience,  and  shed  around  him  the  rays  of  his 
descending  sun.  His  conversation  was  rich  in 
anecdote  and  characters  of  the  times  that  were  past; 
rich  in  political  and  moral  instruction;  full  of  that 
best  of  wisdom,  which  is  learnt  from  real  life,  and 
flowing  from  his  heart  with  that  warm  and  honest 


xliv         Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

frankness,  that  fervor  of  feeling  and  force  of  diction, 
which  so  strikingly  distinguished  him  in  the  merid- 
ian of  his  life.  Many  of  us  heard  that  simple  and 
touching  account  given  of  a  parting  scene  with  him, 
by  one  of  our  eloquent  divines:  when  he  rose  up 
from  that  little  couch  behind  the  door,  on  which  he 
was  wont  to  rest  his  aged  and  weary  limbs,  and  with 
his  silver  locks  hanging  on  each  side  of  his  honest 
face,  stretching  forth  that  pure  hand,  which  was 
never  soiled  even  by  a  suspicion,  and  gave  his  kind 
and  parting  benediction.  Such  was  the  blissful  and 
honored  retirement  of  the  sage  of  Quincy.  Happy 
the  life  which,  verging  upon  a  century,  had  met 
with  but  one  serious  political  disappointment !  And 
even  for  that,  he  had  lived  to  receive  a  golden 
atonement  "even  in  that  quarter  in  which  he  had 
garnered  up  his  heart.' '  Let  us  now  turn  for  a 
moment  to  the  patriot  of  the  South.  The  Roman 
moralist,  in  that  great  work  which  he  has  left  for 
the  government  of  man  in  all  the  offices  of  life,  has 
descended  even  to  prescribe  the  kind  of  habitation 
in  which  an  honored  and  distinguished  man  should 
dwell.  It  should  not,  he  says,  be  small,  and  mean, 
and  sordid:  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  extended  with 
profuse  and  wanton  extravagance.  It  should  be 
large  enough  to  receive  and  accommodate  the 
visitors  which  such  a  man  never  fails  to  attract,  and 
suited  in  its  ornaments,  as  well  as  its  dimensions, 
to  the  character  and  fortune  of  the  individual.  Mon- 
ticello  ha§  now  lost  its  great  charm,     Tho$e  of  you 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson  xlv 

who  have  not  already  visited  it,  will  not  be  very 
apt  to  visit  it  hereafter:  and  from  the  feelings  which 
you  cherish  for  its  departed  owner,  I  persuade  myself 
that  you  will  not  be  displeased  with  a  brief  and 
rapid  sketch  of  that  abode  of  domestic  bliss,  that 
temple  of  science.  Nor  is  it,  indeed,  foreign  to  the 
express  purpose  of  this  meeting,  which  in  looking 
to  "his  life  and  character,"  naturally  embraces  his 
home  and  domestic  habits.  Can  anything  be  indif- 
ferent to  us,  which  was  so  dear  to  him  and  which 
was  a  subject  of  such  just  admiration  to  the  hun- 
dreds and  thousands  that  were  continually  resort- 
ing to  it,  as  to  an  object  of  pious  pilgrimage? 

The  mansion  house  at  Monticello  was  built  and 
furnished  in  the  days  of  his  prosperity.  In  its 
dimensions,  its  architecture,  its  arrangements  and 
ornaments,  it  is  such  a  one  as  became  the  character 
and  fortune  of  the  man.  It  stands  upon  an  elliptic 
plain,  formed  by  cutting  down  the  apex  of  a  moun- 
tain; and  on  the  west,  stretching  away  to  the  north 
and  the  south,  it  commands  a  view  of  the  Blue 
Ridge  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  and  brings 
under  the  eye  one  of  the  boldest  and  most  beautiful 
horizons  in  the  world;  while  on  the  east,  it  presents 
an  extent  of  prospect,  bounded  only  by  the  spherical 
form  of  the  earth,  in  which  nature  seems  to  sleep  in 
eternal  repose,  as  if  to  form  one  of  her  finest  con- 
trasts with  the  rude  and  rolling  grandeur  of  the 
west.  In  the  wide  prospect,  and  scattered  to  the 
north  and  south,  are  several  detached  mountains, 


xlvi         Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

which  contribute  to  animate  and  diversify  this 
enchanting  landscape;  and  among  them  to  the 
south,  Williss'  Mountain,  which  is  so  interestingly 
depicted  in  his  notes.  From  this  summit  the 
philosopher  was  wont  to  enjoy  that  spectacle, 
among  the  sublimest  of  Nature's  operations,  the 
looming  of  the  distant  mountains;  and  to  watch 
the  motions  of  the  planets,  and  the  greater  revolu- 
tion of  the  celestial  sphere.  From  this  summit,  too, 
the  patriot  could  look  down  with  uninterrupted 
vision  upon  the  wide  expanse  of  the  world  around, 
for  which  he  considered  himself  born;  and  upward 
to  the  open  and  vaulted  heavens  which  he  seemed 
to  approach,  as  if  to  keep  him  continually  in  mind 
of  his  high  responsibility.  It  is,  indeed,  a  prospect 
in  which  you  see  and  feel  at  once  that  nothing 
mean  or  little  could  live. 

It  is  a  scene  fit  to  nourish  those  great  and  high- 
souled  principles  which  formed  the  elements  of  his 
character  and  was  a  most  noble  and  appropriate 
post,  for  such  a  sentinel,  over  the  rights  and  liber- 
ties of  man.  Approaching  the  house  on  the  east, 
the  visitor  instinctively  paused  to  cast  around  one 
thrilling  glance  at  this  magnificent  panorama;  and 
then  passed  to  the  vestibule,  where,  if  he  had  not 
been  previously  informed,  he  would  immediately 
perceive  that  he  was  entering  the  house  of  no  com- 
mon man.  In  the  spacious  and  lofty  hall  which 
opens  before  him,  he  marks  no  tawdry  and  unmean- 
ing ornaments:  but  before,  on  the  right,  on  the  left, 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson        xlvii 

all  around,  the  eye  is  struck  and  gratified  with 
objects  of  science  and  taste  so  classed  and  arranged 
as  to  produce  their  finest  effect.  On  one  side,  speci- 
mens of  sculpture  set  out,  in  such  order,  as  to 
exhibit  at  a  coup  d'oeil  the  historical  progress  of 
that  art;  from  the  first  rude  attempts  of  the  abo- 
rigines of  our  country,  up  to  that  exquisite  and 
finished  bust  of  the  great  patriot  himself,  from  the 
master  hand  of  Ciracchi.  On  the  other  side  the 
visitor  sees  displayed  a  vast  collection  of  specimens 
of  Indian  art,  their  paintings,  weapons,  ornaments, 
and  manufactures;  on  another,  an  array  of  the 
fossil  productions  of  our  country,  mineral  and 
animal ;  the  polished  remains  of  those  colossal  mon- 
sters that  once  trod  our  forests,  and  are  no  more; 
and  a  variegated  display  of  the  branching  honors 
of  those  "monarchs  of  the  waste,"  that  still  people 
the  wilds  of  the  American  continent. 

From  this  hall  he  was  ushered  into  a  noble  salon, 
from  which  the  glorious  landscape  of  the  west  again 
burst  upon  his  view;  and  which,  within,  is  hung 
thick  around  with  the  finest  productions  of  the 
pencil — historical  paintings  of  the  most  striking 
subjects  from  all  countries  and  all  ages;  the  por- 
traits of  distinguished  men  and  patriots,  both  of 
Europe  and  America,  and  medallions  and  engrav- 
ings in  endless  profusion.  While  the  visitor  was 
yet  lost  in  the  contemplation  of  these  treasures  of 
the  arts  and  sciences,  he  was  startled  by  the  approach 
of  a  strong  and  sprightly  step,  and  turning  with 


xlviii       Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

instinctive  reverence  to  the  door  of  entrance,  he 
was  met  by  the  tall  and  animated  and  stately 
figure  of  the  patriot  himself — his  countenance  beam- 
ing with  intelligence  and  benignity,  and  his  out- 
stretched hand,,  with  its  strong  and  cordial  pressure, 
confirming  the  courteous  welcome  of  his  lips.  And 
then  came  that  charm  of  manner  and  conversation 
that  passes  all  description — so  cheerful — so  unas- 
suming— so  free,  and  easy,  and  frank,  and  kind, 
and  gay — that  even  the  young  and  ,  overawed  and 
embarrassed  visitor  at  once  forgot  his  fears,  and 
felt  himself  by  the  side  of  an  old  and  familiar  friend. 
There  was  no  effort,  no  ambition  in  the  conversa- 
tion of  the  philosopher.  It  was  as  simple  and 
unpretending  as  nature  itself.  And  while  in  this 
easy  manner  he  was  pouring  out  instruction,  like 
light  from  an  inexhaustible  solar  fountain,  he 
seemed  continually  to  be  asking,  instead  of  giving 
information.  The  visitor  felt  himself  lifted  by  the 
contact  into  a  new  and  nobler  region  of  thought, 
and  became  surprised  at  his  own  buoyancy  and 
vigor.  He  could  not,  indeed,  help  being  astounded, 
now  and  then,  at  those  transcendent  leaps  of  the 
mind,  which  he  saw  made  without  the  slightest  exer- 
tion, and  the  ease  with  which  this  wonderful  man 
played  with  subjects  which  he  had  been  in  the  habit 
of  considering  among  the  argumenta  cruets  of  the 
intellect.  And  then  there  seemed  to  be  no  end  to 
his  knowledge.  He  was  a  thorough  master  of  every 
subject   that   was   touched.     From  the   details   of 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson         xlix 

the  humblest  mechanic  art,  up  to  the  highest  sum- 
mit  of  science,  he  was  perfectly  at  his  ease  and 
everywhere  at  home.  There  seemed  to  be  no  longer 
any  terra  incognita  of  the  human  understanding: 
for,  what  the  visitor  had  thought  so,  he  now  found 
reduced  to  a  familiar  garden  walk;  and  all  this 
carried  off  so  lightly,  so  playfully,  so  gracefully,  so 
engagingly,  that  he  won  every  heart  that  approached 
him,  as  certainly  as  he  astonished  every  mind. 

Mr.  Jefferson  was  wont  to  remark,  that  he  never 
left  the  conversation  of  Dr.  Franklin  without  carry- 
ing away  with  him  something  new  and  useful.  How 
often,  and  how  truly,  has  the  same  remark  been 
made  of  him.  Nor  is  this  wonderful,  when  we 
reflect  that  that  mind  of  matchless  vigor  and  ver- 
satility had  been,  all  his  life,  intensely  engaged  in 
conversing  with  the  illustrious  dead,  or  following 
the  march  of  science  in  every  land,  or  bearing  away 
on  its  own  steady  and  powerful  wing  into  new  and 
unexplored  regions  of  thought.  Shall  I  follow  him 
to  the  table  of  his  elegant  hospitality,  and  show 
him  to  you  in  the  bosom  of  his  enchanting  family? 
Alas!  those  Attic  days  are  gone;  that  sparkling 
eye  is  quenched;  that  voice  of  pure  and  delicate 
affection,  which  ran  with  such  brilliancy  and  effect 
through  the  whole  compass  of  colloquial  music,  now 
bright  with  wit,  now  melting  with  tenderness,  is 
hushed  forever  in  the  grave!  But  let  me  leave  a 
theme  on  which  friendship  and  gratitude  have,  I 
fear,  already  been  tempted  to  linger  too  long.     There 


1  Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

was  one  solace  of  the  declining  years  of  both  of  these 
great  men,  which  must  not  be  passed.  It  is  that 
correspondence  which  arose  between  them,  after 
their  retirement  from  public  life.  That  correspond- 
ence, it  is  to  be  hoped,  will  be  given  to  the  world.1 

If  it  ever  shall,  I  speak  from  knowledge  when  I 
say,  it  will  be  found  to  be  one  of  the  most  interesting 
and  affecting  that  the  world  has  ever  seen.  That 
"cold  cloud"  which  had  hung  for  a  time  over  their 
friendship,  passed  away  with  the  conflict  out  of 
which  it  had  grown,  and  the  attachment  of  their 
early  life  returned  in  all  its  force. 

They  had  both  now  bid  adieu,  a  final  adieu,  to 
all  public  employments,  and  were  done  with  all  the 
agitating  passions  of  life.  They  were  dead  to  the 
ambitious  world;  and  this  correspondence  resem- 
bles, more  than  anything  else,  one  of  those  con- 
versations in  the  Elysium  of  the  ancients,  which 
the  shades  of  the  departed  great  were  supposed 
by  them  to  hold,  with  regard  to  the  affairs  of  the 
world  they  had  left.  There  are  the  same  playful 
allusions  to  the  points  of  difference  that  had  divided 
their  parties:  the  same  mutual,  and  light,  and 
unimpassioned  raillery  on  their  own  past  miscon- 
ceptions and  mistakes;  the  same  mutual  and  just 
admiration  and  respect  for  their  many  virtues  and 
services  to  mankind.     That  correspondence  was,  to 

1  The  most  interesting  part  of  the  correspondence  here  referred  to 
by  the  orator  (William  Wirt)  has  been  incorporated  in  the  present 
work.     See  Contents  of  Volumes  XIII,  XIV,  XV,  XVI. 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson  li 

them  both,  one  of  the  most  genial  employments  of 
their  old  age :  and  it  reads  a  lesson  of  wisdom  on  the 
bitterness  of  party  spirit,  by  which  the  wise  and  the 
good  will  not  fail  to  profit.  i 

Besides  this  affectionate  intercourse  between  them,  * 
you  are  aware  of  the  extensive  correspondence 
which  they  maintained  with  others,  and  of  which 
some  idea  may  be  formed  by  those  letters  which, 
since  their  death,  have  already  broken  upon  us 
through  the  press,  from  quarters  so  entirely  unex- 
pected. They  were  considered  as  the  living  histo- 
rians of  the  Revolution  and  of  the  past  age,  as  well 
as  oracles  of  wisdom  to  all  who  consulted  them. 
Their  habit  in  this  particular  seems  to  have  been  the 
same ;  never  to  omit  answering  any  respectful  letter 
they  received,  no  matter  how  obscure  the  individual, 
or  how  insignificant  the  subject.  With  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son this  was  a  sacred  law,  and  as  he  always  wrote 
at  a  polygraphic  desk,  copies  have  been  preserved 
of  every  letter.  His  correspondence  travelled  far 
beyond  his  own  country,  and  embraced  within  its 
circle  many  of  the  most  distinguished  men  of  his 
age  in  Europe.  What  a  feast  for  the  mind  may 
we  not  expect  from  the  published  letters  of  these 
excellent  men!  They  were  both  masters-  in  this 
way,  though  somewhat  contrasted.  Mr.  Adams, 
plain,  nervous,  and  emphatic,  the  thought  couched 
in  the  fewest  and  strongest  words,  and  striking 
with  a  kind  of  epigrammatic  force.  Mr.  Jefferson, 
flowing  with  easy  and  careless  melody,  the  language 


Hi  Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

at  the  same  time  pruned  of  every  redundant  word, 
and  giving  the  thought  with  the  happiest  precision, 
the  aptest  words  dropping  unbidden  and  unsought 
into  their  places,  as  if  they  had  fallen  from  the  skies; 
and  so  beautiful,  so  felicitous,  as  to  fill  the  mind 
with  a  succession  of  delightful  surprises,  while  the 
judgment  is,  at  the  same  time,  made  captive  by  the 
closely  compacted  energy  of  the  argument. 

Mr.  Jefferson's  style  is  so  easy  and  harmonious, 
as  to  have  led  superficial  readers  to  remark,  that 
he  was  deficient  in  strength:  as  if  ruggedness  and 
abruptness  were  essential  to  strength.  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son's strength  was  inherent  in  the  thoughts  and  con- 
ceptions, though  hidden  by  the  light  and  graceful 
vestments  which  he  threw  over  them.  The  internal 
divinity  existed  and  was  felt,  though  concealed 
under  the  finely  harmonized  form  of  the  man;  and 
if  he  did  not  exhibit  himself  in  his  compositions 
with  the  insignia  of  Hercules,  the  shaggy  lion's 
skin  and  the  knotted  club,  he  bore  the  full  quiver 
and  the  silver  bow  of  Apollo;  and  every  polished 
shaft  that  he  loosened  from  the  string,  told  with 
unerring    and    fatal    precision:     Aeo^   $k  KXay-fy    y«W 

apyvpeoio  fiioio. 

These  two  great  men,  so  eminently  distinguished 
among  the  patriots  of  the  Revolution,  and  so  illus- 
trious by  their  subsequent  services,  became  still 
more  so,  by  having  so  long  survived  all  that  were 
most  highly  conspicuous  among  their  coevals.  All 
the  stars  of  first  magnitude  in  the  equatorial  and 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson  liii 

tropical  regions  had  long  since  gone  downf  and  still 
they  remained.  Still  they  stood  full  in  view,  like 
those  two  resplendent  constellations  near  the  oppo- 
site poles,  which  never  set  to  the  inhabitants  of  the 
neighboring  zones. 

But  they,  too,  were  doomed  at  length  to  set:  and 
such  was  their  setting  as  no  American  bosom  can 
ever  forget ! 

In  the  midst  of  their  fast-decaying  strength,  and 
when  it  was  seen  that  the  approach  of  death  was 
certain,  their  country  and  its  glory  still  occupied 
their  thoughts,  and  circulated  with  the  last  blood 
that  was  ebbing  to  their  hearts.     Those  who  sur- 
rounded the  death-bed  of  Mr.  Jefferson  report  that, 
in  the  few  short  intervals  of  delirium  that  occurred, 
his  mind  manifestly  relapsed  to  the  age  of  the  Revo- 
lution.    He  talked  in  broken  sentences  of  the  Com- 
mittees   of    Safety,    and    the    rest    of    that    great 
machinery  which  he  imagined  to  be  still  in  action. 
One   of   his   exclamations   was,    "Warn   the   Com- 
mittee to  be  on  their  guard;"    and  he  instantly 
rose  in  his  bed,   with  the  help  of  his  attendants, 
and  went  through  the  act  of  writing  a  hurried  note. 
But  these  intervals  were  few  and  short.     His  reason 
was  almost  constantly  on  her  throne,  and  the  only 
aspiration  he  was  heard  to  breathe,  was  the  prayer 
that  he  might  live  to  see  the  Fourth  of  July.     When 
that  day  came,  all  that  he  was  heard  to  whisper 
was  the  repeated  ejaculation, — "Nunc  Domine  dimiU 
tis"  Now,  Lord?  let  Thy  servant  depart  in  peag§! 

\9h  iww— » 


liv  Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

i 

And  the  prayer  of  the  patriot  was  heard  and 
answered. 

The  patriarch  of  Quincy,  too,  with  the  same  cer- 
tainty of  death  before  him,  prayed  only  for  the  pro- 
traction of  his  life  to  the  same  day.  His  prayer 
also  was  heard:  and  when  a  messenger  from  the 
neighboring  festivities,  'unapprized  of  his  danger, 
was  deputed  to  ask  him  for  the  honor  of  a  toast, 
he  showed  the  object  on  which  his  dying  eyes  were 
fixed,  and  exclaimed  with  energy,  "  Independence 
forever!"  His  country  first,  his  country  last,  his 
country  always!  "0  save  my  country — Heaven!" 
he  said,  and  died. 

Hitherto,  fellow  citizens,  the  Fourth  of  July  had 
been  celebrated  among  us,  only  as  anniversary  of 
our  Independence,  and  its  votaries  had  been  merely 
human  beings.  But  at  its  last  recurrence — the 
great  jubilee  of  the  nation — the  anniversary,  it  may 
well  be  termed,  of  the  liberty  of  man — Heaven  itself 
mingled  visibly  in  the  celebration,  and  hallowed  the 
day  anew  by  a  double  apotheosis.  Is  there  one 
among  us  to  whom  this  language  seems  too  strong? 
Let  him  recall  his  own  feelings,  and  the  objection 
will  vanish.  When  the  report  first  reached  us,  of 
the  death  of  the  great  man,  whose  residence  was 
nearest,  who  among  us  was  not  struck  with  the  cir- 
cumstance that  he  should  have  been  removed  on 
the  day  of  his  own  highest  glory?  And  who,  after 
the  first  shock  of  the  intelligence  had  passed,  did 
not  feel  a  thrill  of  mournful  delight  at  the  char- 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson  lv 

acteristic  beauty  of  the  close  of  such  a  life?  But 
while  our  bosoms  were  yet  swelling  with  admiration 
at  this  singularly  beautiful  coincidence,  when  the 
second  report  immediately  followed,  of  the  death 
of  the  great  sage  of  Quincy,  on  the  same  day,  I  ap- 
peal to  yourselves — is  there  a  voice  that  was  not 
hushed,  is  there  a  heart  that  did  not  quail,  at 
this  close  manifestation  of  the  hand  of  Heaven  in 
our  affairs?  Philosophy,  recovered  of  her  surprise, 
may  affect  to  treat  the  coincidence  as  fortuitous. 
But  Philosophy  herself  was  mute,  at  the  moment, 
under  the  pressure  of  the  feeling  that  these  illus- 
trious men  had  rather  been  translated  than  had 
died.  It  is  in  vain  to  tell  us  that  men  die  by  thou- 
sands every  day  in  the  year,  all  over  the  world. 
The  wonder  is  not  that  two  men  have  died  on  the 
same  day,  but  that  two  such  men,  after  having 
performed  so  many  and  such  splendid  services  in 
the  cause  of  liberty — after  the  multitude  of  other 
coincidences  which  seemed  to  have  linked  the  desti- 
nies together — after  having  lived  so  long  together, 
the  objects  of  their  country's  joint  veneration- 
after  having  been  spared  to  witness  the  great  tri- 
umph of  their  toils  at  home — and  looked  together 
from  Pisgah's  top  on  the  sublime  effort  of  that 
grand  impulse  which  they  had  given  to  the  same 
glorious  cause  throughout  the  world,  should  on 
this  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  day  on  which  they 
had  ushered  that  cause  into  light,  be  both  caught 
up  to  Heaven  together,  in  the  midst  of  their  rap- 


lvi  Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson 

tures!  Is  there  a  being,  of  heart  so  obdurate  and 
sceptical  as  not  to  feel  the  hand  and  hear  the  voice 
of  Heaven  in  this  wonderful  dispensation?  And 
may  we  not,  with  reverence,  interpret  its  language? 
Is  it  not  this?  ''These  are  My  beloved  servants, 
in  whom  I  am  well  pleased.  They  have  finished 
the  work  for  which  I  sent  them  into  the  world :  and 
are  now  called  to  their  reward.  Go  ye,  and  do 
likewise ! ' ' 

One  circumstance  alone  remains  to  be  noticed. 
In  a  private  memorandum  found  among  some  other 
obituary  papers  and  relics  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  is  a  sug- 
gestion, in  case  a  memorial  over  him  should  ever 
be  thought  of,  that  a  granite  obelisk,  of  small 
dimensions,  should  be  erected,  with  the  following 
inscription : 

Here  was  buried 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON, 

Author  of  the  Declaration  of  American  Independence, 

of 
The  Statute  of  Virginia  for  Religious  Freedom, 

and 
Father  of  the  University  of  Virginia. 

All  the  long  catalogue  of  his  great  and  splendid 
and  glorious  services,  reduced  to  this  brief  and 
modest  summary! 

Thus  lived  and  thus  died  our  sainted  Patriots! 
May  their  spirits  still  continue  to  hover  over  their 
countrymen,   inspire  all  their  counsels,   and  guide 


Wirt's  Eulogy  on  Jefferson  Ivii 

them  in  the  same  virtuous  and  noble  path!  And 
may  that  God  in  whose  hands  are  the  issues  of  all 
things,  confirm  and  perpetuate  to  us  the  inestimable 
boon  which  through  their  agency  He  has  bestowed, 
and  make  our  Columbia  the  bright  exemplar  for  all 
the  struggling  sons  of  liberty  around  the  globe. 


s 


Announcement  of  Declaration  of  Independence 

{From  the  Steps  of  the  State  House,  Philadelphia) 

Reproduced  from  an   Old  Engraving 

After  the  Declaration  had  been  approved  and  accepted  by  the  Con- 
gress, it  was  ordered  printed  as  a  broadside  for  distribution  throughout 
the  colonies.  Furthermore,  it  was  publicly  proclaimed  in  the  principal 
cities  and  towns  of  the  new  United  States.  This  reproduction  depicts  the 
moment  of  the  announcement  of  the  adoption  of  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence from  the  Philadelphia  State  House. 


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CONTENTS. 


PAGB 

Jefferson    as    a    Geographer.      By  General  A.  W. 

Greely,  Chief  Signal  Officer,  U.  S.  A i 

Eulogy  on  Jefferson.     Delivered  by  Hon.  William 
Wirt,  LL.  D.,  Attorney- General  of  the  United  States, 

on  October  19,  1826 ix 

Letters     Written     After     His    Return    to    the 

United  States,  1789-1826. 1—  441 

To  Doctor  Benjamin  Rush,  January  16,1811....  1 

To  John  Lynch,  January  21,  181 1 10 

To  Monsieur  Destutt  de  Tracy,  January  26,  181 1.  13 
To  the   President   of   the   United   States    (James 

Madison),  March  8,1811 22 

To  General  James  Wilkinson,  March  10,  181 1 ....  23 

To  John  Melish,  March  10,  181 1 24 

To  Colonel  William  Duane,  March  28,1811 25 

To  B.  H.  Latrobe,  April  14,  181 1 31 

To  B aron  Alexander  Von  Humboldt ,  April  14,1811  s$ 

To  Monsieur  Paganel,  April  15,  181 1 36 

To  Monsieur  Dupont  de  Nemours,  April  15,  181 1  37 

To  General  Thaddeus  Kosciusko,  April  13,  1811 .  .  40 

To  Joel  Barlow,  April  16,  1811 44 

To  Albert  Gallatin,  April  24,   181 1 45 

To  Robert  Smith,  April  30,  181 1 46 

To  Colonel  William  Duane,  April  30,  181  r 47 

To  William  Wirt,  May  3,1811 52 

To  William  Wirt,  May  3,1811 S6 

To  John  Hollins,  May  5,1811 57 

To  James  Monroe,  May  5,  181 1 59 


lx  Contents 

Letters    Written    After    His    Return    to    the 

United  States,   17 89-1 8 26 — Continued.  pagb 
To  John  Severin  Vater,  Professor  at  Konigsberg, 

May  11,  1811 60 

To  Count  John  Potocki,  May  12,1811 61 

To  the   President   of  the   United   States    (James 

Madison),  July  3,  181 1 63 

To  Joel  Barlow,  July  22,  181 1 64 

To  Colonel  William  Duane,  July  25,  1811 65 

To  James   Ogilvie,  August  4,    181 1 68 

To  Judge  Archibald  Stuart,  August  8,  1811.  .  .  .  71 

To  General  Henry  Dearborn,  August  14,1811...  72 

To  Dr.  Benjamin  Rush,  August  17,  1811 74 

To  William  A.  Burwell,  August  19,  181 1 77 

To  Charles  W.  Peale,  August  20,  18 11 78 

To  Charles   Clay,   August   23,    181 1 80 

To  Levi  Lincoln,  August   25,   181 1 81 

To  James  L.  Edwards,  September  5,  1811 82 

To  James   Lyon,   September   5,    181 1 84 

To  Dr.  Robert  Patterson,  September  11,  181 1..  85 

To  Clement  Caine,  September  16,  1811 89 

To  John  W.  Eppes,  September  29,  1811 92 

To  Paine  Todd,    October   10,    181 1 94 

To  Dr.  Robert  Patterson,  November  10,  1811..  95 

To  Dr.  Robert  Patterson,  November  10,  181 1..  108 

To  H.  A.  S.  Dearborn,  November  15,  181 1 no 

To  Melatiah  Nash,  November  15,   1811 112 

To  Dr.  Benjamin  Rush,  December  5,  181 1 114 

To  Dr.  John  Crawford,  January  2,  1812 117 

To  Thomas  Sully,  January  8,  181 2 119 

To  James  Monroe,  January  n,   1812 120 

To  John  Adams,  January  21,  181 2 122 

To  Governor  James  Barbour,  January  22,  1812.  .  125 

To  Benjamin  Galloway,  February  2,  1812 129 

To  Ezra  Sargeant,  February  3,   1812..... 131 


Contents  bri 

Letters    Written    After    His    Return    to    the 

United  States,   17 89-1 8 26 — Continued.  pagb 

To  Dr.  Wheaton,   February   14,   1812 133 

To  Charles  Christian,  March  21,  181 2. 134 

To  F.  A.  Van  Der  Kemp,  March  22,  1812 135 

To  Hugh  Nelson,  April  2,  1812 137 

To  the   President  of  the   United  States   (James 

Madison),    April    17,    1812 ,.■ 139 

To  John  Adams,  April   20,   1812 141 

To  James  Maury,  April  25,  181 2 144 

To  John  Rodman,  April  25,  181 2 149 

To  John  Jacob  Astor,  May  24,  181 2 150 

To  the   President   of  the   United   States    (James 

Madison),  May  30,  1812 153 

To  the   President  of  the  United   States    (James 

Madison),  June  6,   1812 154 

To  John  Adams,  June  11,  181 2 156 

To  Elbridge  Gerry,  June  11,  181 2 161 

To  Judge  John  Tyler,  June  17,  181 2 165 

To  General  Thaddeus  Kosciusko,  June  28,  1812.  .  168 
To  the   President  of  the   United  States   (James 

Madison),  June  29,  1812.  ......  ■ 172 

To  Nathaniel  Green,  July  5,  181 2 174 

To  Thomas  Cooper,  July  10    181 2 176 

To  B.  H.  Latrobe,  July  12,  1812 178 

To  Colonel  William  Duane,  August  4,  181 2 180 

To  General  Thaddeus  Kosciusko,  August  5,  1812.  182 
To  the   President   of  the   United   States    (James 

Madison),  August  5,  181 2 183 

To  Robert  Wright,  August  8,1812 184 

To  Thomas  Letre,  August  8,   181 2 185 

To  Colonel  William  Duane,  October  1,  1812 186 

To  Thomas  C.  Flourney,  October  1,  1812 190 

To  Dr.  Robert  Patterson,  December  27,  1812...  191 

To  John  Adams,  December  28,  i§j2f , , 193 


lxii  Contents 

Letters    Written    After    His    Return    to    the 

United  States,   1789-18 26 — Continued.  pagb 

To  Henry  Middleton,  January  8,  1813 202 

To  James  Ronaldson,  January  12,  1813 204 

To  John  Melish,  January   13,    1813.............  206 

To  Colonel  William  Duane,  January  22,  1813.  . .  213 

To  Dr.  Robert  Morrell,  February  5,  1813 215 

To  General  Theodorus  Bailey,  February  6,  1813.  216 
To  the   President   of  the   United   States    (James 

Madison),   February  8,    1813 218 

To  General  John  Armstrong,  February  8,  1813.  .  220 

To  Dr.  Benjamin  Rush,  March  6,  1813 222 

To  Monsieur  De  Lomerie,  April  3,  1813 226 

To  Thomas  Paine  McMatron,  April  3,   1813....  227 

To  Colonel  William  Duane,  April  4,   1813 229 

To  the   President   of  the   United   States    (James 

Madison),  May  21,  1813 232 

To  Madame  La  Baronne  De  Stael-Holstein,  May 

24,  1813 237 

To  John  Adams,  May  27,  1813 246 

To  James  Monroe,  May  30,  1813 250 

To  John  Adams,  June  15,  1813 252 

To  William  Short,  June  18,  1813 257 

To  the   President   of  the   United   States    (James 

Madison),  June  18,  1813 .  .  .  ■ 259 

To  James  Monroe,  June  18,  1813 261 

To  Matthew  Carr,  June  19,  1813 263 

To  the   President   of  the   United   States    (James 

Madison),  June  21,  1813 265 

To  John  W.  Eppes,  June  24,  1813 .  .  269 

To  John  Adams,  June  27,   1813 279 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  June  28,  1813.  284 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  June  28,  1813.  290 

To  Dr.  John  L.  E.  W.  Shecut,  John  29,  1813 295 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  June  30,  1813  296 


Contents  1 


Xlll 


Letters    Written    After    His    Return    to    the 

United  States,   17 89-1 8 26 — Continued.  pagb 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  July,  1813  . .  300 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  July  9,   18 13  302 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  July  13,  18 13  306 

To  Dr.  Samuel  Brown,  July  14,  1813 310 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  July  15,1813..  313 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  July  16,1813..  3*6 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  July  18,1813..  3*9 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  July  22,1813..  322 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  August  9,  181 3  324 

To  Isaac  McPherson,  August  13,  1813 326 

To  John  Waldo,  August  16,  1813 338 

To  John  Wilson,  August  17,  1813 347 

To  John  Adams,  August  22,  1813 349 

To  John  W.  Eppes,  September  11,  1813 353 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  September  14, 

1813 368 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  September  15, 

1813 373 

To  William  Canby,  September  18,  1813 376 

To  General  William  Duane,  September  18,  1813.  378 

To  Isaac  McPherson,  September  18,  1813 379 

To  James  Martin,   September  20,    1813 381 

To  Dr.  George  Logan,  October  3,  1813 384 

To  John  Adams,  October  13,   1813 387 

To  John  Adams,  October  28,  1813 394 

To  John  W.  Eppes,  November  6,  1813 404 

To  John  Jacob  Astor,  November  9,  1813 43 2 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  November  12, 

1813 434 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  November  15, 

1813 437 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Jefferson  at  Forty-three Frontispieu 

Photogravure  from  the  Original  Painting  by  Mather  Brown. 

FACING  PAGE 

New  York  and   New  Hampshire  Signers viii 

Reproduced  from  the  Original  Paintings  in  Independence 
Hall,  Philadelphia. 

Announcement    of    Declaration    of    Independence 

from  the  State  House,  Philadelphia lviii 

Reproduced  from  an  Old  Engraving. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 


LETTERS  WRITTEN  AFTER  HIS  RETURN 
TO  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

1789-1826. 

(CONTINUED.) 


JEFFERSON'S  WORKS. 


LETTERS  WRITTEN  AFTER  HIS  RETURN 
TO  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

1789-1826. 


TO  DOCTOR  BENJAMIN  RUSH. 

Monticello,  January  16,  181 1. 
Dear  Sir, — I  had  been  considering  for  some  days, 
whether  it  was  not  time  by  a  letter,  to  bring  myself 
to  your  recollection,  when  I  received  ypur  welcome 
favor  of  the  2d  instant.  I  had  before  heard  of  the 
heartrending  calamity  you  mention,  and  had  sin- 
cerely sympathized  with  your  afflictions.  But  I 
had  not  made  it  the  subject  of  a  letter,  because  I 
knew  that  condolences  were  but  renewals  of  grief. 
Yet  I  thought,  and  still  think,  this  is  one  of  the 
cases  wherein  we  should  "not  sorrow,  even  as  others 

who  have  no  hope.,, 

********* 

You  ask  if  I  have  read  Hartley?  I  have  not  My 
present  course  of  life  admits  less  reading  than  I  wish. 
From  breakfast,  or  noon  at  latest,  to  dinner,  I  am 

VOL.   XIII — I 


2  Jefferson's  Works 

mostly  on  horseback,  attending  to  my  farm  or  other 
concerns,  which  I  find  healthful  to  my  body,  mind 
and  affairs;  and  the  few  hours  I  can  pass  in  my 
cabinet,  are  devoured  by  correspondences;  not 
those  with  my  intimate  friends,  with  whom  I  delight 
to  interchange  sentiments,  but  with  others,  who, 
writing  to  me  on  concerns  of  their  own  in  which  I 
have  had  an  agency,  or  from  motives  of  mere  respect 
and  approbation,  are  entitled  to  be  answered  with 
respect  and  a  return  of  good  will.  My  hope  is  that 
this  obstacle  to  the  delights  of  retirement,  will  wear 
away  with  the  oblivion  which  follows  that,  and  that 
I  may  at  length  be  indulged  in  those  studious 
pursuits,  from  which  nothing  but  revolutionary 
duties  would  ever  have  called  me. 

I  shall  receive  your  proposed  publication  and  read 
it  with  the  pleasure  which  everything  gives  me  from 
your  pen.  Although  much  of  a  sceptic  in  the 
practice  of  medicine,  I  read  with  pleasure  its  in- 
genious theories. 

I  receive  with  sensibility  your  observations  on  the 
discontinuance  of  friendly  correspondence  between 
Mr.  Adams  and  myself,  and  the  concern  you  take 
in  its  restoration.  This  discontinuance  has  not 
proceeded  from  me,  nor  from  the  want  of  sincere 
desire  and  of  effort  on  my  part,  to  renew  our  inter- 
course. You  know  the  perfect  coincidence  of  prin- 
ciple and  of  action,  in  the  early  part  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, which  produced  a  high  degree  of  mutual  respect 
and  esteem  between  Mr.  Adams  and  myself.     Cer- 


Correspondence  3 

tainly  no  man  was  ever  truer  than  he  was,  in  that 
day,  to  those  principles  of  rational  republicanism 
which,  after  the  necessity  of  throwing  off  our 
monarchy,  dictated  all  our  efforts  in  the  establish- 
ment of  a  new  government.  And  although  he 
swerved,  afterwards,  towards  the  principles  of  the 
English  constitution,  our  friendship  did  not  abate 
on  that  account.  While  he  was  Vice-President, 
and  I  Secretary  of  State,  I  received  a  letter  from 
President  Washington,  then  at  Mount  Vernon, 
desiring  me  to  call  together  the  Heads  of  depart- 
ments, and  to  invite  Mr.  Adams  to  join  us  (which, 
by-the-bye,  was  the  only  instance  of  that  being 
done)  in  order  to  determine  on  some  measure  which 
required  despatch;  and  he  desired  me  to  act  on  it, 
as  decided,  without  again  recurring  to  him.  I 
invited  them  to  dine  with  me,  and  after  dinner, 
sitting  at  our  wine,  having  settled  our  question, 
other  conversation  came  on,  in  which  a  collision  of 
opinion  arose  between  Mr.  Adams  and  Colonel 
Hamilton,  on  the  merits  of  the  British  constitution, 
Mr.  Adams  giving  it  as  his  opinion,  that,  if  some  of 
its  defects  and  abuses  wTere  corrected,  it  would  be 
the  most  perfect  constitution  of  government  ever 
devised  by  man.  Hamilton,  on  the  contrary, 
asserted,  that  with  its  existing  vices,  it  was  the 
most  perfect  model  of  government  that  could  be 
formed;  and  that  the  correction  of  its  vices  would 
render  it  an  impracticable  government.  And  this 
you  may  be  assured  was  the  real  line  of  difference 


4  Jefferson's  Works 

between  the  political  principles  of  these  two  gentle- 
men. Another  incident  took  place  on  the  same 
occasion,  which  will  further  delineate  Mr.  Hamilton's 
political  principles.  The  room  being  hung  around 
with  a  collection  of  the  portraits  of  remarkable  men, 
among  them  were  those  of  Bacon,  Newton  and 
Locke,  Hamilton  asked  me  who  they  were.  I  told 
him  they  were  my  trinity  of  the  three  greatest  men 
the  world  had  ever  produced,  naming  them.  He 
paused  for  some  time:  "the  greatest  man,"  said 
he,  "  that  ever  lived,  was  Julius  Caesar. "  Mr.  Adams 
was  honest  as  a  politician,  as  well  as  a  man ;  Hamil- 
ton honest  as  a  man,  but,  as  a  politician,  believing 
in  the  necessity  of  either  force  or  corruption  to 
govern  men. 

You  remember  the  machinery  which  the  federal- 
ists played  off,  about  that  time,  to  beat  down  the 
friends  to  the  real  principles  of  our  Constitution,  to 
silence  by  terror  every  expression  in  their  favor, 
to  bring  us  into  war  with  France  and  alliance  with 
England,  and  finally  to  homologize  our  Constitution 
with  that  of  England.  Mr.  Adams,  you  know,  was 
overwhelmed  w'th  feverish  addresses,  dictated  by 
the  fear,  and  often  by  the  pen,  of  the  bloody  buoy, 
and  was  seduced  by  them  into  some  open  indications 
of  his  new  principles  of  government,  and  in  fact,  was 
so  elated  as  to  mix  with  his  kindness  a  little  super- 
ciliousness towards  me.  Even  Mrs.  Adams,  with  all 
her  good  sense  and  prudence,  was  sensibly  flushed. 
And  you  recollect  the  short  suspension  of  our  inter- 


Correspondence  5 

course,  and  the  circumstance  which  gave  rise  to  it, 
which  you  were  so  good  as  to  bring  to  an  early 
explanation,  and  have  set  to  rights,  to  the  cordial 
satisfaction  of  us  all.     The  nation  at  length  passed 
condemnation    on    the    political    principles    of    the 
federalists,  by  refusing  to  continue  Mr.  Adams  in 
the  Presidency.     On  the  day  on  which  we  learned 
in  Philadelphia  the  vote  of  the  city  of  New  York, 
which  it  was  well  known  would  decide  the  vote  of 
the  State,  and  that,  again,  the  vote  of  the  Union,  I 
called  on  Mr.  Adams  on  some  official  business.     He 
was  very  sensibly  affected,  and  accosted  me  with 
these  words:    "Well,  I  understand  that  you  are  to 
beat  me  in  this  contest,  and  I  will  only  say  that  I 
will  be  as  faithful  a  subject  as  any  you  will  have." 
"Mr.  Adams,"  said  I,    "this  is  no  personal  contest 
between  you  and  me.     Two  systems  of  principles 
on   the   subject   of   government   divide   our   fellow 
citizens  into  two  parties.     With  one  of  these  you 
concur,  and  I  with  the  other.     As  we  have  been 
longer  on  the  public  stage  than  most  of  those  now 
living,    our   names   happen   to   be   more   generally 
known.     One  of  these  parties,   therefore,   has  put 
your  name  at  its  head,  the  other  mine.     Were  we 
both   to   die   to-day,   to-morrow   two  other  names 
would  be  in  the  place  of  ours,  without  any  change 
in   the   motion   of   the   machinery.     Its   motion   is 
from   its  principle,  not   from  you  or   myself."     "I 
believe  you  are  right,"  said  he,  "that  we  are  but 
passive    instruments,    and    should    not    suffer    this 


g  jettersons  Works 

matter  to  affect  our  personal  dispositions."  But 
he  did  not  long  retain  this  just  view  of  the  subject. 
I  have  always  believed  that  the  thousand  calumnies 
which  the  federalists,  in  bitterness  of  heart,  and 
mortification  at  their  ejection,  daily  invented  against 
me,  were  carried  to  him  by  their  busy  intriguers, 
and  made  some  impression.  When  the  election 
between  Burr  and  myself  was  kept  in  suspense  by 
the  federalists,  and  they  were  meditating  to  place 
the  President  of  the  Senate  at  the  head  of  the  govern- 
ment, I  called  on  Mr.  Adams  with  a  view  to  have 
this  desperate  measure  prevented  by  his  negative. 
He  grew  warm  in  an  instant,  and  said  with  a  vehe- 
mence he  had  not  used  towards  me  before,  "  Sir,  the 
event  of  the  election  is  within  your  own  power. 
You  have  only  to  say  you  will  do  justice  to  the 
public  creditors,  maintain  the  navy,  and  not  disturb 
those  holding  offices,  and  the  government  will 
instantly  be  put  into  your  hands.  We  know  it  is 
the  wish  of  the  people  it  should  be  so."  "  Mr. 
Adams,"  said  I, '"I  know  not  what  part  of  my  con- 
duct, in  either  public  or  private  life,  can  have  author- 
ized a  doubt  of  my  fidelity  to  the  public  engagements. 
I  say,  however,  I  will  not  come  into  the  government 
by  capitulation.  I  will  not  enter  on  it,  but  in  perfect 
freedom  to  follow  the  dictates  of  my  own  judgment." 
I  had  before  given  the  same  answer  to  the  same 
intimation  from  Gouverneur  Morris.  'Then,"  said 
he,  "things  must  take  their  course."  I  turned  the 
conversation  to  something  else,  and  soon  took  my 


Correspondence  7 

leave.  It  was  the  first  time  in  our  lives  we  had 
ever  parted  with  anything  like  dissatisfaction.  And 
then  followed  those  scenes  of  midnight  appointment, 
which  have  been  condemned  by  all  men.  The  last 
day  of  his  political  power,  the  last  hours,  and  even 
beyond  the  midnight,  were  employed  in  filling  all 
offices,  and  especially  permanent  ones,  with  the 
bitterest  federalists,  and  providing  for  me  the 
alternative,  either  to  execute  the  government  by 
my  enemies,  whose  study  it  would  be  to  thwart  and 
defeat  all  my  measures,  or  to  incur  the  odium  of 
such  numerous  removals  from  office,  as  might  bear 
me  down.  A  little  time  and  reflection  effaced  in 
my  mind  this  temporary  dissatisfaction  with  Mr. 
Adams,  and  restored  me  to  that  just  estimate  of  his 
virtues  and  passions,  which  a  long  acquaintance 
had  enabled  me  to  fix.  And  my  first  wish  became 
that  of  making  his  retirement  easy  by  any  means 
in  my  power ;  for  it  was  understood  he  was  not  rich. 
I  suggested  to  some  republican  members  of  the 
delegation  from  his  State,  the  giving  him,  either 
directly  or  indirectly,  an  office,  the  most  lucrative 
in  that  State,  and  then  offered  to  be  resigned,  if 
they  thought  he  would  not  deem  it  affrontive.  They 
were  of  opinion  he  would  take  great  offence  at  the 
offer;  and  moreover,  that  the  body  of  republicans 
would  consider  such  a  step  in  the  outset  as  auguring 
very  ill  of  the  course  I  meant  to  pursue.  I  dropped 
the  idea,  therefore,  but  did  not  cease  to  wish  for  some 
opportunity  of  renewing  our  friendly  understanding. 


8  Jefferson's  Works 

Two  or  three  years  after,  having  had  the  mis- 
fortune to  lose  a  daughter,  between  whom  and  Mrs. 
Adams  there  had  been  a  considerable  attachment, 
she  made  it  the  occasion  of  writing  me  a  letter,  in 
which,  with  the  tenderest  expressions  of  concern 
at  this  event,  she  carefully  avoided  a  single  one  of 
friendship  towards  myself,  and  even  concluded  it 
with  the  wishes  "of  her  who  once  took  pleasure  in 
subscribing  herself  your  friend,  Abigail  Adams." 
Unpromising  as  was  the  complexion  of  this  letter,  I 
determined  to  make  an  effort  towards  removing 
the  cloud  from  between  us.  This  brought  on  a 
correspondence  which  I  now  enclose  for  your  perusal, 
after  which  be  so  good  as  to  return  it  to  me,  as  I  have 
never  communicated  it  to  any  mortal  breathing, 
before.  I  send  it  to  you,  to  convince  you  I  have 
not  been  wanting  either  in  the  desire,  or  the  endeavor 
to  remove  this  misunderstanding.  Indeed,  I  thought 
it  highly  disgraceful  to  us  both,  as  indicating  minds 
not  sufficiently  elevated  to  prevent  a  public  com- 
petition from  affecting  our  personal  friendship.  I 
soon  found  from  the  correspondence  that  concili- 
ation was  desperate,  and  yielding  to  an  intimation 
in  her  last  letter,  I  ceased  from  further  explanation. 
I  have  the  same  good  opinion  of  Mr.  Adams  which 
I  ever  had.  I  know  him  to  be  an  honest  man,  an 
able  one  with  his  pen,  and  he  was  a  powerful  advo- 
cate on  the  floor  of  Congress.  He  has  been  alienated 
from  me,  by  belief  in  the  lying  suggestions  contrived 
for  electioneering  purposes,  that  I  perhaps  mixed  in 


Correspondence  9 

the  activity  and  intrigues  of  the  occasion.  My 
most  intimate  friends  can  testify  that  I  was  perfectly 
passive.  They  would  sometimes,  indeed,  tell  me 
what  was  going  on;  but  no  man  ever  heard  me  take 
part  in  such  conversations;  and  none  ever  misrep- 
resented Mr.  Adams  in  my  presence,  without  my 
asserting  his  just  character.  With  very  confidential 
persons  I  have  doubtless  disapproved  of  the  principles 
and  practices  of  his  administration.  This  was 
unavoidable.  But  never  with  those  with  whom  it 
could  do  him  any  injury.  Decency  would  have 
required  this  conduct  from  me,  if  disposition  had 
not;  and  I  am  satisfied  Mr.  Adams'  conduct  was 
equally  honorable  towards  me.  But  I  think  it  part 
of  his  character  to  suspect  foul  play  in  those  of  whom 
he  is  jealous,  and  not  easily  to  relinquish  his  sus- 
picions. 

I  have  gone,  my  dear  friend,  into  these  details, 
that  you  might  know  everything  which  had  passed 
between  us,  might  be  fully  possessed  of  the  state  of 
facts  and  dispositions,  and  judge  for  yourself  whether 
they  admit  a  revival  of  that  friendly  intercourse 
for  which  you  are  so  kindly  solicitous.  I  shall 
certainly  not  be  wanting  in  anything  on  my  part 
which  may  second  your  efforts,  which  will  be  the 
easier  with  me,  inasmuch  as  I  do  not  entertain  a 
sentiment  of  Mr.  Adams,  the  expression  of  which 
could  give  him  reasonable  offence.  And  I  submit 
the  whole  to  yourself,  with  the  assurance,  that 
whatever  be  the  issue,  my  friendship  and  respect 
for  yourself  will  remain  unaltered  and  unalterable. 


*o  Jefferson's  Works 


TO    JOHN    LYNCH. 

Monticello,  January  21,   181 1. 

Sir, — You  have  asked  my  opinion  on  the  proposi- 
tion of  Mrs.  Mifflin,  to  take  measures  for  procuring, 
on  the  coast  of  Africa,  an  establishment  to  which 
the  people  of  color  of  these  States  might,  from  time 
to  time,  be  colonized,  under  the  auspices  of  different 
governments.  Having  long  ago  made  up  my  mind 
on  this  subject,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that 
I  have  ever  thought  it  the  most  desirable  measure 
which  could  be  adopted,  for  gradually  drawing  off 
this  part  of  our  population,  most  advantageously  for 
themselves  as  well  as  for  us.  Going  from  a  country 
possessing  all  the  useful  arts,  they  might  be  the 
means  of  transplanting  them  among  the  inhabitants 
of  Africa,  and  would  thus  carry  back  to  the  country 
of  their  origin,  the  seeds  of  civilization  which  might 
render  their  sojournment  and  sufferings  here  a 
blessing  in  the  end  to  that  country. 

I  received,  in  the  first  year  of  my  coming  into  the 
administration  of  the  General  Government,  a  letter 
from  the  Governor  of  Virginia,  (Colonel  Monroe,) 
consulting  me,  at  the  request  of  the  legislature  of 
the  State,  on  the  means  of  procuring  some  such 
asylum,  to  which  these  people  might  be  occasionally 
sent.  I  proposed  to  him  the  establishment  of  Sierra 
Leone,  to  which  a  private  company  in  England  had 
already  colonized  a  number  of  negroes,  and  particu- 
larly the  fugitives    from  these   States   during  the 


Correspondence  1 1 

Revolutionary  War;  and  at  the  same  time  suggested, 
if  this  could  not  be  obtained,  some  of  the  Portuguese 
possessions  in  South  America,  as  next  most  desirable. 
The  subsequent  legislature  approving  these  ideas, 
I  wrote,  the  ensuing  year,   1802,  to  Mr.  King,  our 
Minister  in  London,  to  endeavor  to  negotiate  with! 
the  Sierra  Leone  company  a  reception  of  such  of 
these  people   as   might   be   colonized   thither.     He 
opened   a   correspondence   with   Mr.    Wedderburne 
and    Mr.    Thornton,    secretaries    of    the    company, 
on  the  subject,  and  in  1803  I  received  through  Mr. 
King  the  result,   which  was  that  the  colony  was 
going  on,  but  in  a  languishing  condition;    that  the 
funds  of  the  company  were  likely  to  fail,  as  they 
received  no  returns  of  profit  to  keep  them  up;   that 
they  were  therefore  in  treaty  with  their  government 
to  take  the  establishment  off  their  hands;    but  that 
in  no  event  should  they  be  willing  to  receive  more 
of  these  people  from  the  United  States,  as  it  was 
exactly  that  portion  of  their  settlers  which  had  gone 
from  hence,  which,  by  their  idleness  and  turbulence, 
had    kept    the    settlement    in    constant    danger   of 
dissolution,  which  could  not  have  been  prevented 
but  for  the  aid  of  the  Maroon  negroes  from  the  West 
Indies,  who  were  more  industrious  and  orderly  than 
the    others,    and    supported    the    authority    of   the 
government  and  its  laws.     I  think  I  learned  after- 
wards that  the  British  government  had  taken  the 
colony  into  its  own  hands,   and   I   believe  it  still 
exists.     The  effort  which  I  made  with  Portugal,  to 


i2  Jefferson's  Works 

obtain    an    establishment    for    them    within    their 
claims  in  South  America,  proved  also  abortive. 

You  inquire  further,  whether  I  would  use  my 
endeavors  to  procure  for  such  an  establishment 
security  against  violence  from  other  powers,  and 
particularly  from  France?  Certainly,  I  shall  be 
willing  to  do  anything  I  can  to  give  it  effect  and 
safety.  But  I  am  but  a  private  individual,  and 
could  only  use  endeavors  with  private  individuals; 
whereas,  the  National  Government  can  address 
themselves  at  once  to  those  of  Europe  to  obtain 
the  desired  security,  and  will  unquestionably  be 
i  eady  to  exert  its  influence  with  those  nations  for  an 
object  so  benevolent  in  itself,  and  so  important  to  a 
great  portion  of  its  constituents.  Indeed,  nothing 
is  more  to  be  wished  than  that  the  United  States 
would  themselves  undertake  to  make  such  an 
establishment  on  the  coast  of  Africa.  Exclusive  of 
motives  of  humanity,  the  commercial  advantages  to 
be  derived  from  it  might  repay  all  its  expenses.  But 
for  this,  the  national  mind  is  not  yet  prepared.  It 
may  perhaps  be  doubted  whether  many  of  these 
people  would  voluntarill  consent  to  such  an  exchange 
of  situation,  and  very  certain  that  few  of  those 
advanced  to  a  certain  age  in  habits  of  slavery, 
would  be  capable  of  self-government.  This  should 
not,  however,  discourage  the  experiment,  nor  the 
early  trial  of  it;  and  the  proposition  should  be  made 
with  all  the  prudent  cautions  and  attentions  requisite 


Correspondence  13 

to  reconcile  it  to  the  interests,  the  safety  and  the 
prejudices  of  all  parties. 

Accept  the  assurances  of  my  respect  and  esteem. 


TO    MONSIEUR    DESTUTT    DE    TRACY. 

Monticello,  January  26,  181 1. 
Sir, — The  length  of  time  your  favor  of  June  the 
12th,  1809,  was  on  its  way  to  me,  and  my  absence 
from  home  the  greater  part  of  the  autumn,  delayed 
very  much  the  pleasure  which  awaited  me  of  reading 
the  packet  which  accompanied  it.  I  cannot  express 
to  you  the  satisfaction  which  I  received  from  its 
perusal.  I  had,  with  the  world,  deemed  Montes- 
quieu's work  of  much  merit;  but  saw  in  it,  with 
every  thinking  man,  so  much  of  paradox,  of  false 
principle  and  misapplied  fact,  as  to  render  its  value 
equivocal  on  the  whole.  Williams  and  others  had 
nibbled  only  at  its  errors.  A  radical  correction  of 
them,  therefore,  was  a  great  desideratum.  This 
want  is  now  supplied,  and  with  a  depth  of  thought, 
precision  of  idea,  of  language  and  of  logic,  which 
will  force  conviction  into  every  mind.  I  declare  to 
you,  Sir,  in  the  spirit  of  truth  and  sincerity,  that  I 
consider  it  the  most  precious  gift  the  present  age  has 
received.  But  what  would  it  have  been,  had  the 
author,  or  would  the  author,  take  up  the  whole 
scheme  of  Montesquieu's  work,  and  following  the 
correct  analysis  he  has  here  developed,  fill  up  all  its 
parts  according  to  his  sound  views  of  them  ?  Montes- 


i4  Jefferson's  Works 

quieu's  celebrity  would  be  but  a  small  portion  of 
that  which  would  immortalize  the  author.  And  with 
whom?  With  the  rational  and  high-minded  spirits 
of  the  present  and  all  future  ages.  With  those 
whose  approbation  is  both  incitement  and  reward  to 
virtue  and  ambition.  Is  then  the  hope  desperate? 
To  what  object  can  the  occupation  of  his  future  life 
be  devoted  so  usefully  to  the  world,  so  splendidly 
to  himself?  But  I  must  leave  to  others  who  have 
higher  claims  on  his  attention,  to  press  these  consid- 
erations. 

My  situation,  far  in  the  interior  of  the  country, 
was  not  favorable  to  the  object  of  getting  this  work 
translated  and  printed.  Philadelphia  is  the  least 
distant  of  the  great  towns  of  our  States,  where  there 
exists  any  enterprise  in  this  way;  and  it  was  not 
till  the  spring  following  the  receipt  of  your  letter, 
that  I  obtained  an  arrangement  for  its  execution. 
The  translation  is  just  now  completed.  The  sheets 
came  to  me  by  post,  from  time  to  time,  for  revisal; 
but  not  being  accompanied  by  the  original,  I  could 
not  judge  of  verbal  accuracies.  I  think,  however, 
it  is  substantially  correct,  without  being  an  adequate 
representation  of  the  excellences  of  the  original;  as 
indeed  no  translation  can  be.  I  found  it  impossible 
to  give  it  the  appearance  of  an  original  composition 
in  our  language.  I  therefore  think  it  best  to  divert 
inquiries  after  the  author  towards  a  quarter  where 
he  will  not  be  found ;  and  with  this  view,  propose  to 
prefix  the  prefatory  epistle  now  enclosed.     As  soon 


Correspondence  15 

as  a  copy  of  the  work  can  be  had,  I  will  send  it  to 
you  by  duplicate.  The  secret  of  the  author  will  be 
faithfully  preserved  during  his  and  my  joint  lives; 
and  those  into  whose  hands  my  papers  will  fall  at 
my  death,  will  be  equally  worthy  of  confidence. 
When  the  death  of  the  author,  or  his  living  consent 
shall  permit  the  world  to  know  their  benefactor, 
both  his  and  my  papers  will  furnish  the  evidence. 
In  the  meantime,  the  many  important  truths  the 
work  so  solidly  establishes,  will,  I  hope,  make  it  the 
political  rudiment  of  the  young,  and  manual  of  our 
older  citizens. 

One  of  its  doctrines,  indeed,  the  preference  of  a 
plural  over  a  singular  executive,  will  probably  not  be 
assented  to  here.  When  our  present  government  was 
first  established,  we  had  many  doubts  on  this  ques- 
tion, and  many  leanings  towards  a  supreme  executive 
council.  It  happened  that  at  that  time  the  experi- 
ment of  such  an  one  was  commenced  in  France,  while 
the  single  executive  was  under  trial  here.  We 
watched  the  motions  and  effects  of  these  two  rival 
plans,  with  an  interest  and  anxiety  proportioned 
to  the  importance  of  a  choice  between  them.  The 
experiment  in  France  failed  after  a  short  course,  and 
not  from  any  circums'ance  peculiar  to  the  times  or 
nation,  but  from  those  internal  jealousies  and  dissen- 
sions in  the  Directory,  which  will  ever  arise  among 
men  equal  in  power,  without  a  principal  to  decide 
and  control  their  differences.  We  had  tried  a 
similar  experiment  in  1784,  by  establishing  a  com- 


1 6  Jefferson's  Works 

mittee  of  the  States,  composed  of  a  member  from 
every  State,  then  thirteen,  to  exercise  the  executive 
functions  during  the  recess  of  Congress.  They  fell 
immediately  into  schisms  and  dissensions,  which 
became  at  length  so  inveterate  as  to  render  all  co- 
operation among  them  impracticable ;  they  dissolved 
themselves,  abandoning  the  helm  of  government,  and 
it  continued  without  a  head,  until  Congress  met  the 
ensuing  winter.  This  was  then  imputed  to  the 
temper  of  two  or  three  individuals;  but  the  wise 
ascribed  it  to  the  nature  of  man.  The  failure  of  the 
French  Directory,  and  from  the  same  cause,  seems 
to  have  authorized  a  belief  that  the  form  of  a 
plurality,  however  promising  in  theory,  is  impracti- 
cable with  men  constituted  with  the  ordinary  passions 
While  the  tranquil  and  steady  tenor  of  our  single 
executive,  during  a  course  of  twenty-two  years  of 
the  most  tempestuous  times  the  history  of  the  world 
has  ever  presented,  gives  a  rational  hope  that  this 
important  problem  is  at  length  solved.  Aided  by 
the  counsels  of  a  Cabinet  of  heads  of  departments, 
originally  four,  but  now  five,  with  whom  the  Presi- 
dent consults,  either  singly  or  all  together,  he  has  the 
benefit  of  their  wisdom  and  information,  brings 
their  views  to  one  centre,  and  produces  an  unity  of 
action  and  direction  in  all  the  branches  of  the  govern- 
ment. The  excellence  of  this  construction  of  the 
executive  power  has  already  manifested  itself  here 
under  very  opposite  circumstances.  During  the 
administration  of  our  first  President,  his  Cabinet  of 


Correspondence  1 7 

four  members  was  equally  divided  by  as  marked  an 
opposition  of  principle  as  monarchism  and  repub- 
licanism could  bring  into  conflict.  Had  that  Cabinet 
been  a  directory,  like  positive  and  negative  quantities 
in  Algebra,  the  opposing  wills  would  have  balanced 
each  other  and  produced  a  state  of  absolute  inaction. 
But  the  President  heard  with  calmness  the  opinions 
and  reasons  of  each,  decided  the  course  to  be  pursued, 
and  kept  the  government  steadily  in  it,  unaffected 
by  the  agitation.  The  public  knew  well  the  dissen- 
sions of  the  Cabinet,  but  never  had  an  uneasy  thought 
on  their  account,  because  they  knew  also  they  had 
provided  a  regulating  power  which  would  keep  the 
machine  in  steady  movement.  I  speak  with  an 
intimate  knowledge  of  these  scenes,  quorum  pars  fui; 
as  I  may  of  others  of  a  character  entirely  opposite. 
The  third  administration,  which  was  of  eight  years, 
presented  an  example  of  harmony  in  a  Cabinet  of 
six  persons,  to  which  perhaps  history  has  furnished 
no  parallel.  There  never  arose,  during  the  whole 
time,  an  instance  of  an  unpleasant  thoughts  word 
between  the  members.  We  sometimes  met  under 
differences  of  opinion,  but  scarcely  ever  failed,  by 
conversing  and  reasoning,  so  to  modify  each  other's 
ideas,  as  to  produce  an  unanimous  result.  Yet, 
able  and  amicable  as  these  members  were,  I  am  not 
certain  this  would  have  been  the  case,  had  each 
possessed  equal  and  independent  powers.  Ill-defined 
limits  of  their  respective  departments,  jealousies, 
trifling   at   first,    but   nourished   and   strengthened 

VOL.    XIII 2 


18  Jefferson's  Works 

by  repetition  of  occasions,  intrigues  without  doors 
of  designing  persons  to  build  an  importance  to 
themselves  on  the  divisions  of  others,  might,  from 
small  beginnings,  have  produced  persevering  opposi- 
tions. But  the  power  of  decision  in  the  President 
left  no  object  for  internal  dissension,  and  external 
intrigue  was  stifled  in  embryo  by  the  knowledge 
which  incendiaries  possessed,  that  no  division  they 
could  foment  would  change  the  course  of  the  execu- 
tive power.  I  am  not  conscious  that  my  participa- 
tions in  executive  authority  have  produced  any  bias 
in  favor  of  the  single  executive;  because  the  parts 
I  have  acted  have  been  in  the  subordinate,  as  well  as 
superior  stations,  and  because,  if  I  know  myself, 
what  I  have  felt,  and  what  I  have  wished,  I  know 
that  I  have  never  been  so  well  pleased,  as  when  I 
could  shift  power  from  my  own,  on  the  shoulders 
of  others;  nor  have  I  ever  been  able  to  conceive 
how  any  rational  being  could  propose  happiness 
to  himself  from  the  exercise  of  power  over  others. 

I  am  still,  however,  sensible  of  the  solidity  of  your 
principle,  that,  to  insure  the  safety  of  the  public 
liberty,  its  depository  should  be  subject  to  be  changed 
with  the  greatest  ease  possible,  and  without  suspend- 
ing or  disturbing  for  a  moment  the  movements  of 
the  machine  of  government.  You  apprehend  that 
a  single  executive,  with  eminence  of  talent,  and 
destitution  of  principle,  equal  to  the  object,  might, 
by  usurpation,  render  his  powers  hereditary.  Yet 
I  think  history  furnishes  as  many  examples  of  a 


Correspondence  19 

single  usurper  arising  out  of  a  government  by  a 
plurality,  as  of  temporary  trusts  of  power  in  a  single 
hand  rendered  permanent  by  usurpation.  I  do  not 
believe,  therefore,  that  this  danger  is  lessened  in  the 
hands  of  a  plural  executive.  Perhaps  it  is  greatly 
increased,  by  the  state  of  inefficiency  to  which  they 
are  liable  from  feuds  and  divisions  among  them- 
selves. The  conservative  body  you  propose  might 
be  so  constituted,  as,  while  it  would  be  an  admirable 
sedative  in  a  variety  of  smaller  cases,  might  also  be 
a  valuable  sentinel  and  check  on  the  liberticide 
views  of  an  ambitious  individual.  I  am  friendly 
to  this  idea.  But  the  true  barriers  of  our  liberty 
in  this  country  are  our  State  governments ;  and  the 
wisest  conservative  power  ever  contrived  by  man, 
is  that  of  which  our  Revolution  and  present  govern- 
ment found  us  possessed.  Seventeen  distinct  States, 
amalgamated  into  one  as  to  their  foreign  concerns, 
but  single  and  independent  as  to  their  internal 
administration,  regularly  organized  with  a  legislature 
and  governor  resting  on  the  choice  of  the  people,  and 
enlightened  by  a  free  press,  can  never  be  so  fascinated 
by  the  arts  of  one  man,  as  to  submit  voluntarily  to 
his  usurpation.  Nor  can  they  be  constrained  to  it  by 
any  force  he  can  possess.  While  that  may  paralyze 
the  single  State  in  which  it  happens  to  be  encamped, 
sixteen  others,  spread  over  a  country  of  twTo  thousand 
miles  diameter,  rise  up  on  every  side,  ready  organized 
for  deliberation  by  a  constitutional  legislature,  and 
for  action  by  their  governor,   constitutionally  the 


20  Jefferson's  Works 

commander  of  the  militia  of  the  State,  that  is  to  say, 
of  every  man  in  it  able  to  bear  arms;  and  that 
militia,  too,  regularly  formed  into  regiments  and 
battalions,  into  infantry,  cavalry  and  artillery, 
trained  under  officers  general  and  subordinate, 
legally  appointed,  always  in  readiness,  and  to  whom 
they  are  already  in  habits  of  obedience.  The 
republican  government  of  France  was  lost  without 
a  struggle,  because  the  party  of  "  un  et  indivisible" 
had  prevailed;  no  provincial  organizations  existed 
to  which  the  people  might  rally  under  authority  of 
the  laws,  the  seats  of  the  directory  were  virtually 
vacant,  and  a  small  force  sufficed  to  turn  the  legis- 
lature out  of  their  chamber,  and  to  salute  its  leader 
chief  of  the  nation.  But  with  us,  sixteen  out  of 
seventeen  States  rising  in  mass,  under  regular 
organization,  and  legal  commanders,  united  in  object 
and  action  by  their  Congress,  or,  if  that  be  in  duresse, 
by  a  special  convention,  present  such  obstacles  to  an 
usurper  as  forever  to  stifle  ambition  in  the  first  con- 
ception of  that  object. 

Dangers  of  another  kind  might  more  reasonably 
be  apprehended  from  this  perfect  and  distinct 
organization,  civil  and  military,  of  the  States;  to 
wit,  that  certain  States  from  local  and  occasional 
discontents,  might  attempt  to  secede  from  the  Union. 
This  is  certainly  possible;  and  would  be  befriended 
by  this  regular  organization.  But  it  is  not  probable 
that  local  discontents  can  spread  to  such  an  extent, 
as  to  be  able  to  face  the  sound  parts  of  so  extensive 


Correspondence  21 

a  Union ;  and  if  ever  they  should  reach  the  majority, 
they  would  then  become  the  regular  government, 
acquire  the  ascendency  in  Congress,  and  be  able 
to  redress  their  own  grievances  by  laws  peaceably 
and  constitutionally  passed.  And  even  the  States 
in  which  local  discontents  might  engender  a  com- 
mencement of  fermentation,  would  be  paralyzed 
and  self-checked  by  that  very  division  into  parties 
into  which  we  have  fallen,  into  which  all  States  must 
fall  wherein  men  are  at  liberty  to  think,  speak,  and 
act  freely,  according  to  the  diversities  of  their  indi- 
vidual conformations,  and  which  are,  perhaps, 
essential  to  preserve  the  purity  of  the  government, 
by  the  censorship  which  these  parties  habitually 
exercise  over  each  other. 

You  will  read,  I  am  sure,  with  indulgence,  the 
explanations  of  the  grounds  on  which  I  have  ventured 
to  form  an  opinion  differing  from  yours.  They 
prove  my  respect  for  your  judgment,  and  diffidence 
in  my  own,  which  have  forbidden  me  to  retain, 
without  examination,  an  opinion  questioned  by 
you.  Permit  me  now  to  render  my  portion  of  the 
general  debt  of  gratitude,  by  acknowledgments  in 
advance  for  the  singular  benefaction  which  is  the 
subject  of  this  letter,  to  tender  my  wishes  for  the 
continuance  of  a  life  so  usefully  employed,  and  to 
add  the  assurances  of  my  perfect  esteem  and  respect. 


22  Jefferson's  Works 


TO    THE    PRESIDENT    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 
(JAMES    MADISON). 

Monticello,  March  8,   1811. 

Dear  Sir, — On  my  return  from  a  journey  of  five 
weeks  to  Bedford  I  found  here  the  two  letters  now 
enclosed,  which  though  directed  to  me,  belong,  in 
their  matter,  to  you.  I  never  before  heard  of  either 
writer,  and  therefore  leave  them  to  stand  on  their 
own  grounds. 

I  congratulate  you  on  the  close  of  your  campaign. 
Although  it  has  not  conquered  your  difficulties,  it 
leaves  you  more  at  leisure  to  consider  and  provide 
against  them.  Our  only  chance  as  to  England  is 
the  accession  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  to  the  throne. 
If  only  to  the  regency,  himself  and  his  ministers  may 
be  less  bold  and  strong  to  make  a  thorough  change 
of  system.  It  will  leave  them,  too,  a  pretext  for  doing 
less  than  right,  if  so  disposed.  He  has  much  more 
understanding  and  good  humor  than  principle  or 
application.  But  it  seems  difficult  to  understand 
what  Bonaparte  means  towards  us.  I  have  been  in 
hopes  the  consultations  with  closed  doors  were  for 
taking  possession  of  East  Florida.  It  would  give  no 
more  offence  anywhere  than  taking  the  western 
province,  and  I  am  much  afraid  the  Percival  ministry 
may  have  given  orders  for  taking  possession  of  it 
before  they  were  put  out  of  power. 

We  have  had  a  wretched  winter  for  the  farmer. 
Great  consumption  of  food  by  the  cattle,  and  little 


Correspondence  23 

weather  for  preparing  the  ensuing  crop.  During 
my  stay  in  Bedford  we  had  seven  snows,  that  of 
February  22,  which  was  of  15  inches  about  Rich- 
mond, was  of  6  inches  here,  and  only  3^-  in  Bedford. 
Ever  affectionately  yours. 


TO    GENERAL   JAMES    WILKINSON. 

Monticello,  March  10,  181 1. 
Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  January  21st  has  been 
received,  and  with  it  the  2d  volume  of  your  Memoirs, 
with  the  appendices  to  the  1st,  2d  and  4th  volumes, 
for  which  accept  my  thanks.  I  shall  read  them 
with  pleasure.  The  expression  respecting  myself, 
stated  in  your  letter  to  have  been  imputed  to  you  by 
your  calumniators,  had  either  never  been  heard  by 
me,  or,  if  heard,  had  been  unheeded  and  forgotten. 
I  have  been  too  much  the  butt  of  such  falsehoods 
myself  to  do  others  the  injustice  of  permitting  them 
to  make  the  least  impression  on  me.  My  conscious- 
ness that  no  man  on  earth  has  me  under  his  thumb  is 
evidence  enough  that  you  never  used  the  expression. 
Daniel  Clarke's  book  I  have  never  seen,  nor  should 
I  put  Tacitus  or  Thucydides  out  of  my  hand  to  take 
that  up.  I  am  even  leaving  off  the  newspapers, 
desirous  to  disengage  myself  from  the  contentions 
of  the  world,  and  consign  to  entire  tranquillity  and 
to  the  kinder  passions  what  remains  to  me  of  life. 
I  look  back  with  commiseration  on  those  still  buffet- 
ing the  storm,  and  sincerely  wish  your  argosy  may 


24  Jefferson's  Works 

ride  out,  unhurt,  that  in  which  it  is  engaged.  My 
belief  is  that  it  will,  and  I  found  that  belief  on  my 
own  knowledge  of  Burr's  transactions,  on  my  view 
of  your  conduct  in  encountering  them,  and  on  the 
candor  of  your  judges.  I  salute  you  with  my  best 
wishes  and  entire  respect. 


TO    JOHN    MELISH. 

Monticello,  March  10,  1811. 
Sir, — I  thank  you  for  your  letter  of  February 
1 6th,  and  the  communication  of  that  you  had 
forwarded  to  the  President.  In  his  hands  it  may 
be  turned  to  public  account;  in  mine  it  is  only 
evidence  of  your  zeal  for  the  general  good.  My 
occupations  are  now  in  quite  a  different  line,  more 
suited  to  my  age,  my  interests  and  inclinations. 
Having  served  my  tour  of  duty,  I  leave  public 
cares  to  younger  and  more  vigorous  minds,  and 
repose  my  personal  well-being  under  their  guardian- 
ship, in  perfect  confidence  of  its  safety.  Our  ship 
is  sound,  the  crew  alert  at  their  posts,  and  our 
ablest  steersman  at  its  helm.  That  she  will  make 
a  safe  port  I  have  no  doubt;  and  that  she  may,  I 
offer  to  heaven  my  daily  prayers,  the  proper  function 
of  age,  and  add  to  yourself  the  assurance  of  my 
respect. 


Correspondence  25 


TO    COLONEL    WILLIAM    DUANE. 

Monticello,  March  28,  1811. 
Dear  Sir  — I  learn  with  sincere  concern,  from 
yours  of  the  15th  received  by  our  last  mail,  the 
difficulties  into  which  you  are  brought  by  the  retire- 
ment of  particular  friends  from  the  accommodations 
they  had  been  in  the  habit  of  yielding  you.  That 
one  of  those  you  name  should  have  separated  from 
the  censor  of  John  Randolph,  is  consonant  with 
the  change  of  disposition  which  took  place  in  him 
at  Washington.  That  the  other,  far  above  that 
bias,  should  have  done  so,  was  not  expected.  I 
have  ever  looked  to  Mr.  Leiper  as  one  of  the  truest 
republicans  of  our  country,  whose  mind,  unaffected 
by  personal  incidents,  pursues  its  course  with  a 
steadiness  of  which  we  have  rare  examples.  Look- 
ing about  for  a  motive,  I  have  supposed  it  was  to  be 
found  in  the  late  arraignments  of  Mr.  Gallatin  in 
your  papers.  However  he  might  differ  from  you 
on  that  subject,  as  I  do  myself,  the  indulgences  in 
difference  of  opinion  which  we  all  owe  to  one  another, 
and  every  one  needs  for  himself,  would,  I  thought, 
in  a  mind  like  his,  have  prevented  such  a  manifes- 
tation of  it.  I  believe  Mr.  Gallatin  to  be  of  a  pure 
integrity,  and  as  zealously  devoted  to  the  liberties 
and  interests  of  our  country  as  its  most  affectionate 
native  citizen.  Of  this  his  courage  in  Congress  in 
the  days  of  terror,  gave  proofs  which  nothing  can 
obliterate  from  the  recollection  of  those  who  were 


26  lefferson's^Works 

witnesses  of  it.  These  are  probably  the  opinions  of 
Mr.  Leiper,  as  I  believe  they  are  of  every  man 
intimately  acquainted  with  Mr.  Gallatin.  An  inter- 
course, almost  daily,  of  eight  years  with  him,  has 
given  me  opportunities  of  knowing  his  character 
more  thoroughly  than  perhaps  any  other  man  living ; 
and  I  have  ascribed  the  erroneous  estimate  you  have 
formed  of  it  to  the  want  of  that  intimate  knowledge 
of  him  which  I  possessed.  Every  one,  certainly, 
must  form  his  judgment  on  the  evidence  accessible 
to  himself ;  and  I  have  no  more  doubt  of  the  integrity 
of  your  convictions  than  I  have  of  my  own.  They 
are  drawn  from  different  materials  and  different 
sources  of  information,  more  or  less  perfect,  accord- 
ing to  our  opportunities.  The  zeal,  the  disinterest- 
edness, and  the  abilities  with  which  you  have  sup- 
ported the  great  principles  of  our  revolution,  the 
persecutions  you  have  suffered,  and  the  firmness  and 
independence  with  which  you  have  suffered  them, 
constitute  too  strong  a  claim  on  the  good  wishes  of 
every  friend  of  elective  government,  to  be  effaced 
by  a  solitary  case  of  difference  in  opinion.  Thus  I 
think,  and  thus  I  believe  my  much-esteemed  friend 
Leiper  would  have  thought;  and  I  am  the  more 
concerned  he  does  not,  as  it  is  so  much  more  in  his 
power  to  be  useful  to  you  than  in  mine.  His  resi- 
dence, and  his  standing  at  the  great  seat  of  the 
moneyed  institutions,  command  a  credit  with  them, 
which  no  inhabitant  of  the  country,  and  of  agri- 
cultural pursuits  only,  can  have.     The  two  or  three 


Correspondence  27 

banks  in  our  uncommercial  State  are  too  distant  to 
have  any  relations  with  the  farmers  of  Albemarle. 
We  are  persuaded  you  have  not  overrated  the  dispo- 
sitions of  this  State  to  support  yourself  and  your 
paper.     They  have  felt  its  services  too  often  to  be 
indifferent  in  the  hour  of  trial.     They  are  well  aware 
that  the  days  of  danger  are  not  yet  over.     And  I  am 
sensible  that  if  there  were  any  means  of  bringing 
into   concert   the   good  will   of   the   friends   of   the 
"Aurora"    scattered   over   this   State,    they   would 
not  deceive  your  expectations.     One  month  sooner 
might  have  found  such  an  opportunity  in  the  assem- 
blage of  our  legislature  in  Richmond.     But  that  is 
now  dispersed  not  to  meet  again  under  a  twelve- 
month.    We,  here,  are  but  one  of  a  hundred  counties, 
and  on  consultation  with  friends  of  the  neighborhood, 
it  is  their  opinion  that  if  we  can  find  an  endorser 
resident  in  Richmond,    (for  that  is  indispensable,) 
ten  or  twelve  persons  of  this  county  would  readily 
engage,   as  you  suggest,   for  their  $100  each,   and 
some  of  them  for  more.     It  is  believed  that  the 
republicans  in  that  city  can  and  will  do  a  great  deal 
more ;  and  perhaps  their  central  position  may  enable 
them  to  communicate  with  other  counties.     We  have 
written  to  a  distinguished  friend  to  the  cause  of 
liberty  there  to  take  the  lead  in  the  business,  as  far 
as  concerns  that  place;    and  for  our  own,  we  are 
taking  measures  for  obtaining  the  aid  of  the  bank 
of  the  same  place.     In  all  this  I  am  nearly  a  cypher. 
Forty  years  of  almost  constant  absence  from  the 


28  Jefferson's  Works 

State  have  made  me  a  stranger  in  it,  have  left  me  a 
solitary  tree,  from  around  which  the  axe  of  time  has 
felled  all  the  companions  of  its  youth  and  growth. 
I  have,  however,  engaged  some  active  and  zealous 
friends  to  do  what  I  could  not.  Their  personal 
acquaintance  and  influence  with  those  now  in  active 
life  can  give  effect  to  their  efforts.  But  our  support 
can  be  but  partial,  and  far  short,  both  in  time  and 
measure,  of  your  difficulties.  They  will  be  little 
more  than  evidences  of  our  friendship.  The  truth 
is  that  farmers,  as  we  all  are,  have  no  command  of 
money.  Our  necessaries  are  all  supplied,  either 
from  our  farms,  or  a  neighboring  store.  Our  produce, 
at  the  end  of  the  year,  is  delivered  to  the  merchant, 
and  thus  the  business  of  the  year  is  done  by  barter, 
without  the  intervention  of  scarcely  a  dollar;  and 
thus  also  we  live  with  a  plenty  of  everything  except 
money.  To  raise  that,  negotiations  and  time  are 
requisite.  I  sincerely  wish  that  greater  and  prompter 
effects  could  have  flowed  from  our  good  will.  On  my 
part,  no  endeavors  or  sacrifices  shall  be  withheld. 
But  we  are  bound  down  by  the  laws  of  our  situation. 
I  do  not  know  whether  I  am  able  at  present  to 
form  a  just  idea  of  the  situation  of  our  country.  If 
I  am,  it  is  such  as,  during  the  bellum  omnium  in 
omnia  of  Europe,  will  require  the  union  of  all  its 
friends  to  resist  its  enemies  within  and  without.  If 
we  schismatize  on  either  men  or  measures,  if  we  do 
not  act  in  phalanx,  as  when  we  rescued  it  from  the 
satellites  of  monarchism,  I  will  not  say  our  party, 


Correspondence  29 

the  term  is  false  and  degrading,  but  our  nation  will 
be  undone.  For  the  republicans  are  the  nation. 
Their  opponents  are  but  a  faction,  weak  in  numbers, 
but  powerful  and  profuse  in  the  command  of  money, 
and  backed  by  a  nation,  powerful  also  and  profuse 
in  the  use  of  the  same  means ;  and  the  more  profuse, 
in  both  cases,  as  the  money  they  thus  employ  is  not 
their  own  but  their  creditors',  to  be  paid  off  by  a 
bankruptcy,  which  whether  it  pays  a  dollar  or  a 
shilling  in  the  pound  is  of  little  concern  with  them. 
The  last  hope  of  human  liberty  in  this  world  rests 
on  us.  We  ought,  for  so  dear  a  state,  to  sacrifice 
every  attachment  and  every  enmity.  Leave  the 
President  free  to  choose  his  own  coadjutors,  to  pursue 
his  own  measures,  and  support  him  and  them,  even 
if  we  think  we  are  wiser  than  they,  honester  than 
they  are,  or  possessing  more  enlarged  information 
of  the  state  of  things.  If  we  move  in  mass,  be  it 
ever  so  circuitously,  we  shall  attain  our  object;  but 
if  we  break  into  squads,  every  one  pursuing  the  path 
he  thinks  most  direct,  we  become  an  easy  conquest 
to  those  who  can  now  barely  hold  us  in  check.  I 
repeat  again,  that  we  ought  not  to  schismatize  on 
either  men  Or  measures.  Principles  alone  can 
justify  that.  If  we  find  our  government  in  all  its 
branches  rushing  headlong,  like  our  predecessors, 
into  the  arms  of  monarchy,  if  we  find  them  violating 
our  dearest  rights,  the  trial  by  jury,  the  freedom 
of  the  press,  the  freedom  of  opinion,  civil  or  religious, 
or  opening  on  our  peace  of  mind  or  personal  safety 


3°  Jefferson's  Works 

the  sluices  of  terrorism,  if  we  see  them  raising  stand- 
ing armies,  when  the  absence  of  all  other  danger 
points  to  these  as  the  sole  objects  on  which  they 
are  to  be  employed,  then  indeed  let  us  withdraw  and 
call  the  nation  to  its  tents.  But  while  our  function- 
aries are  wise,  and  honest,  and  vigilant,  let  us  move 
compactly  under  their  guidance,  and  we  have  nothing 
to  fear.  Things  may  here  and  there  go  a  little  wrong. 
It  is  not  in  their  power  to  prevent  it.  But  all  will 
be  right  in  the  end,  though  not  perhaps  by  the 
shortest  means. 

You  know,  my  dear  Sir,  that  this  union  of  repub- 
licans has  been  the  constant  theme  of  my  exhorta- 
tions, that  I  have  ever  refused  to  know  any  sub- 
divisions among  them,  to  take  part  in  any  personal 
differences;  and  therefore  you  will  not  give  to  the 
present  observations  any  other  than  general  applica- 
tion. I  may  sometimes  differ  in  opinion  from  some 
of  my  friends,  from  those  whose  views  are  as  pure 
and  sound  as  my  own.  I  censure  none,  but  do 
homage  to  every  one's  right  of  opinion.  If  I  have 
indulged  my  pen,  therefore,  a  little  further  than  the 
occasion  called  for,  you  will  ascribe  it  to  a  sermon- 
izing habit,  to  the  anxieties  of  age,  perhaps  to  its 
garrulity,  or  to  any  other  motive  rather  than  the 
want  of  the  esteem  and  confidence  of  which  I  pray 
you  to  accept  sincere  assurances. 

P.  S.     Absorbed  in  a  subject  more  nearly  interest- 
ing,  I  had  forgotten  our  book  on  the  heresies  of 


Correspondence  31 

Montesquieu.  I  sincerely  hope  the  removal  of  all 
embarrassment  will  enable  you  to  go  on  with  it,  or 
so  to  dispose  of  it  as  that  our  country  may  have  the 
benefit  of  the  corrections  it  will  administer  to  public 
opinion. 


TO    B.    H.    LATROBE. 

Monticello,  April  14,   181 1. 

Dear  Sir, — I  feel  much  concern  that  suggestions 
stated  in  your  letter  of  the  5th  instant,  should  at 
this  distance  of  time  be  the  subject  of  uneasiness  to 
you,  and  I  regret  it  the  more  as  they  make  appeals 
to  memory,  a  faculty  never  strong  in  me,  and  now 
too  sensibly  impaired  to  be  relied  on.  It  retains 
no  trace  of  the  particular  conversations  alluded  to, 
nor  enables  me  to  say  that  they  are  or  are  not 
correct.  The  only  safe  appeal  for  me  is  to  the 
general  impressions  received  at  the  time,  and  still 
retained  with  sufficient  distinctness.  These  were  that 
you  discharged  the  duties  of  your  appointment  with 
ability,  diligence  and  zeal,  but  that  in  the  article  of 
expense  you  were  not  sufficiently  guarded.  You 
must  remember  my  frequent  cautions  to  you  on 
this  head,  the  measures  I  took,  by  calling  for  frequent 
accounts  of  expenditures  and  contracts,  to  mark  to 
you,  as  well  as  to  myself,  when  they  were  getting 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  appropriations,  and  the 
afflicting  embarrassments  on  a  particular  occasion 
where  these  limits  had  been  unguardedly  and  greatly 


32  Jefferson's  Works 

transcended.  These  sentiments  I  communicated 
to  you  freely  at  the  time,  as  it  was  my  duty  to  do. 
Another  principle  of  conduct  with  me  was  to  admit 
no  innovations  on  the  established  plans,  but  on  the 
strongest  grounds.  When,  therefore,  I  thought  first 
of  placing  the  floor  of  the  Representative  chamber 
on  the  level  of  the  basement  of  the  building,  and  of 
throwing  into  its  height  the  cavity  of  the  dome,  in 
the  manner  of  the  Halle  aux  Bleds  at  Paris,  I  deemed 
it  due  to  Dr.  Thornton  author  of  the  plan  of  the 
Capitol,  to  consult  him  on  the  change.  He  not  only 
consented,  but  appeared  heartily  to  approve  of  the 
alteration.  For  the  same  reason,  as  well  as  on 
motives  of  economy,  I  was  anxious,  in  converting 
the  Senate  chamber  into  a  Judiciary  room,  to  pre- 
serve its  original  form,  and  to  leave  the  same  arches 
and  columns  standing.  On  your  representation, 
however,  that  the  columns  were  decayed  and  incom- 
petent to  support  the  incumbent  weight,  I  acquiesced 
in  the  change  you  proposed,  only  striking  out  the 
addition  which  would  have  made  part  of  the  middle 
building,  and  would  involve  a  radical  change  in  that 
which  had  not  been  sanctioned.  I  have  no  reason  to 
doubt  but  that  in  the  execution  of  the  Senate  and 
Court  rooms,  you  have  adhered  to  the  plan  com- 
municated to  me  and  approved;  but  never  having 
seen  them  since  their  completion,  I  am  not  able  to 
say  so  expressly.  On  the  whole,  I  do  not  believe 
any  one  has  ever  done  more  justice  to  your  pro- 
fessional  abilities   than  myself.     Besides   constant 


Correspondence  33 

commendations  of  your  taste  in  architecture,  and 
science  in  execution,  I  declared  on  many  and  all 
occasions  that  I  considered  you  as  the  only  person 
in  the  United  States  who  could  have  executed  the 
Representative  chamber,  or  who  could  execute  the 
middle  buildings  on  any  of  the  plans  proposed. 
There  have  been  too  many  witnesses  of  these  decla- 
rations to  leave  any  doubt  as  to  my  opinion  on  this 
subject.  Of  the  value  I  set  on  your  society,  our 
intercourse  before  as  well  as  during  my  office,  can 
have  left  no  doubt  with  you;  and  I  should  be  happy 
in  giving  further  proofs  to  you  personally  at  Monti- 
cello,  of  which  you  have  sometimes  flattered  me 
with  the  hope  of  an  opportunity. 

I  have  thus,  Sir,  stated  general  truths  without 
going  into  the  detail  of  particular  facts  or  expressions, 
to  which  my  memory  does  not  enable  me  to  say  yea 
or  nay.  But  a  consciousness  of  my  consistency  in 
private  as  well  as  public,  supports  me  in  affirming 
that  nothing  ever  passed  from  me  contradictory  to 
these  general  truths,  and  that  I  have  been  misappre- 
hended if  it  has  ever  been  so  supposed.  I  return 
you  the  plans  received  with  your  letter,  and  pray 
you  to  accept  assurances  of  my  continued  esteem 
and  respect. 

TO    BARON    ALEXANDER   VON    HUMBOLDT. 

Monticello,  April  14,   181 1. 
My  dear  Baron,— The  interruption  of  our  inter- 
course with  France  for  some  time  past,  has  prevented 


"Vcru.    A/ill- 


34  Jefferson's  Works 

my  writing  to  you.  A  conveyance  now  occurs,  by 
Mr.  Barlow  or  Mr.  Warden,  both  of  them  going  in  a 
public  capacity.  It  is  the  first  safe  opportunity 
offered  of  acknowledging  your  favor  of  September 
23d,  and  the  receipt  at  different  times  of  the  Hid 
part  of  your  valuable  work,  2d,  3d,  4th  and  5th 
livraisons,  and  the  IVth  part,  2d,  3d,  and  4th 
livraisons,  with  the  Tableaux  de  la  nature,  and  an 
interesting  map  of  New  Spain.  For  these  magnifi- 
cent and  much  esteemed  favors,  accept  my  sincere 
thanks.  They  give  us  a  knowledge  of  that  country 
more  accurate  than  I  believe  we  possess  of  Europe, 
the  seat  of  the  science  of  a  thousand  years.  It 
comes  out,  too,  at  a  moment  when  those  countries 
are  beginning  to  be  interesting  to  the  whole  world. 
They  are  now  becoming  the  scenes  of  political  revolu- 
tion, to  take  their  stations  as  integral  members  of 
the  great  family  of  nations.  All  are  now  in  insur- 
rection. In  several,  the  Independents  are  already 
triumphant,  and  they  will  undoubtedly  be  so  in  all. 
What  kind  of  government  will  they  establish  ?  How 
much  liberty  can  they  bear  without  intoxication? 
Are  their  chiefs  sufficiently  enlightened  to  form  a 
well-guarded  government,  and  their  people  to  watch 
their  chiefs?  Have  they  mind  enough  to  place  their 
domesticated  Indians  on  a  footing  with  the  whites? 
All  these  questions  you  can  answer  better  than  any 
other.  I  imagine  they  will  copy  our  outlines  of 
confederation  and  elective  government,  abolish  dis- 
tinction of  ranks,  bow  the  neck  to  their  priests,  and 


Correspondence  35 

persevere  in  intolerantism.  Their  greatest  difficulty 
will  be  in  the  construction  of  their  executive.  I 
suspect  that,  regardless  of  the  experiment  of  France, 
and  of  that  of  the  United  States  in  1784,  they  will 
begin  with  a  directory,  and  when  the  unavoidable 
schisms  in  that  kind  of  executive  shall  drive  them 
to  something  else,  their  great  question  will  come  on 
whether  to  substitute  an  executive  elective  for  years, 
for  life,  or  an  hereditary  one.  But  unless  instruction 
can  be  spread  among  them  more  rapidly  than  experi- 
ence promises,  despotism  may  come  upon  them 
before  they  are  qualified  to  save  the  ground  they  will 
have  gained.  Could  Napoleon  obtain,  at  the  close 
of  the  present  wrar,  the  independence  of  all  the  West 
India  islands,  and  their  establishment  in  a  separate 
confederacy,  our  quarter  of  the  globe  would  exhibit 
an  enrapturing  prospect  into  futurity.  You  will 
live  to  see  much  of  this.  I  shall  follow,  however, 
cheerfully,  my  fellow  laborers,  contented  with  having 
borne  a  part  in  beginning  this  beatific  reformation. 

I  fear,  from  some  expressions  in  your  letter,  that 
your  personal  interests  have  not  been  duly  protected, 
while  you  were  devoting  your  time,  talents  and  labor 
for  the  information  of  mankind.  I  should  sincerely 
regret  it  for  the  honor  of  the  governing  powers, 
as  well  as  from  affectionate  attachment  to  yourself 
and  the  sincerest  wishes  for  your  felicity,  fortunes 
and  fame. 

In  sending  you  a  copy  of  my  Notes  on  Virginia,  I 
do  but  obey  the  desire  you  have  expressed.     They 


36  Jefferson's  Works 

must  appear  chetif  enough  to  the  author  of  the  great 
work  on  South  America.  But  from  the  widow  her 
mite  was  welcome,  and  you  will  add  to  this  indul- 
gence the  acceptance  of  my  sincere  assurances  of 
constant  friendship  and  respect. 


TO    MONSIEUR    PAGANEL. 

Monticello,  April  15,  1811. 
Sir, — I  received,  through  Mr.  Warden,  the  copy 
of  your  valuable  work  on  the  French  Revolution,  for 
which  I  pray  you  to  accept  my  thanks.  That  its 
sale  should  have  been  suppressed  is  no  matter  of 
wonder  with  me.  The  friend  of  liberty  is  too  feel- 
ingly manifested,  not  to  give  umbrage  to  its  enemies. 
We  read  in  it,  and  weep  over,  the  fatal  errors  which 
have  lost  to  nations  the  present  hope  of  liberty,  and 
to  reason  for  fairest  prospect  of  its  final  triumph 
over  all  imposture,  civil  and  religious.  The  testi- 
mony of  one  who  himself  was  an  actor  in  the  scenes 
he  notes,  and  who  knew  the  true  mean  between 
rational  liberty  and  the  frenzies  of  demagogy,  are  a 
tribute  to  truth  of  inestimable  value.  The  perusal 
of  this  work  has  given  me  new  views  of  the  causes 
of  failure  in  a  revolution  of  which  I  was  a  witness 
in  its  early  part,  and  then  augured  well  of  it.  I  had 
no  means,  afterwards,  of  observing  its  progress  but 
the  public  papers,  and  their  information  came 
through  channels  too  hostile  to  claim  confidence. 
An  acquaintance  with  many  of  the  principal  eharac- 


Correspondence  37 

ters,  and  with  their  fate,  furnished  me  grounds  for 
conjectures,  some  of  which  you  have  confirmed,  and 
some  corrected.  Shall  we  ever  see  as  free  and  faith- 
ful a  tableau  of  subsequent  acts  of  this  deplorable 
tragedy?  Is  reason  to  be  forever  amused  with  the 
hochets  of  physical  sciences,  in  which  she  is  indulged 
merely  to  divert  her  from  solid  speculations  on  the 
rights  of  man,  and  wrongs  of  his  oppressors?  It  is 
impossible.  The  day  of  deliverance  will  come, 
although  I  shall  not  live  to  see  it.  The  art  of  print- 
ing secures  us  against  the  retrogradation  of  reason 
and  information,  the  examples  of  its  safe  and  whole- 
some guidance  in  government,  which  will  be  exhib- 
ited through  the  wide-spread  regions  of  the  American 
continent,  will  obliterate,  in  time,  the  impressions 
left  by  the  abortive  experiment  of  France.  With 
my  prayers  for  the  hastening  of  that  auspicious  day, 
and  for  the  due  effect  of  the  lessons  of  your  work  to 
those  who  ought  to  profit  by  them,  accept  the  assur- 
ances of  my  great  esteem  and  respect. 


TO    MONSIEUR    DUPONT    DE    NEMOURS. 

Monticello,  April  15,  181 1. 
Dear  Sir, — I  have  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of 
your  letters  of  January  20  and  September  14,  18 to, 
and,  with  the  latter,  your  observations  on  the  subject 
of  taxes.  They  bear  the  stamps  of  logic  and  elo- 
quence which  mark  everything  coming  from  you, 
and  place  the  doctrines  oc  the  Economists  in  their 


38  Jefferson's  Works 

strongest  points  of  view.  My  present  retirement 
and  unmeddling  disposition  make  of  this  une  question 
viseuse  pour  moi.  But  after  reading  the  observations 
with  great  pleasure,  I  forwarded  them  to  the  Presi- 
dent and  Mr.  Gallatin,  in  whose  hands  they  may  be 
useful.  Yet  I  do  not  believe  the  change  of  our 
system  of  taxation  will  be  forced  on  us  so  early  as 
you  expect,  if  war  be  avoided.  It  is  true  we  are 
going  greatly  into  manufactures;  but  the  mass  of 
them  are  household  manufactures  of  the  coarse 
articles  worn  by  the  laborers  and  farmers  of  the 
family.  These  I  verily  believe  we  shall  succeed  in 
making  to  the  whole  extent  of  our  necessities.  But 
the  attempts  at  fine  goods  will  probably  be  abortive. 
They  are  undertaken  by  company  establishments, 
and  chiefly  in  the  towns ;  will  have  little  success  and 
short  cont' nuance  in  a  country  where  the  charms 
of  agriculture  attract  every  being  who  can  engage 
in  it.  Our  revenue  will  be  less  than  it  would  be  were 
we  to  continue  to  import  instead  of  manufacturing 
our  coarse  goods.  But  the  increase  of  population 
and  production  will  keep  pace  with  that  of  manu- 
factures, and  maintain  the  quantum  of  exports  at 
the  present  level  at  least;  and  the  imports  need  be 
equivalent  to  them,  and  consequently  the  revenue 
on  them  be  undiminished.  I  keep  up  my  hopes 
that  if  war  be  avoided,  Mr.  Madison  will  be  able  to 
complete  the  payment  of  the  national  debt  within 
his  term,  after  which  one-third  of  the  present  revenue 
would  support  the  government.     Your  information 


Correspondence  39 

that  a  commencement  of  excise  had  been  again 
made,  is  entirely  unfounded.  I  hope  the  death  blow 
to  that  most  vexatious  and  unproductive  of  all  taxes 
was  given  at  the  commencement  of  my  administra- 
tion, and  believe  its  revival  would  give  the  death 
blow  to  any  administration  whatever.  In  most  of 
the  middle  and  southern  States  some  land  tax  is 
now  paid  into  the  State  treasury,  and  for  this  purpose 
the  lands  have  been  classed  and  valued,  and  the  tax 
assessed  according  to  that  valuation.  In  these  an 
excise  is  most  odious.  In  the  eastern  States  land 
taxes  are  odious,  excises  less  unpopular.  We  are  all 
the  more  reconciled  to  the  tax  on  importations, 
because  it  falls  exclusively  on  the  rich,  and  with  the 
equal  partition  of  intestate's  estates,  constitutes 
the  best  agrarian  law.  In  fact,  the  poor  man  in  this 
country  who  uses  nothing  but  what  is  made  within 
his  own  farm  or  family,  or  within  the  United  States, 
pays  not  a  farthing  of  tax  to  the  general  government, 
but  on  his  salt;  and  should  we  go  into  that  manu- 
facture as  we  ought  to  do,  we  will  pay  not  one  cent. 
Our  revenues  once  liberated  by  the  discharge  of  the 
public  debt,  and  its  surplus  applied  to  canals,  roads, 
schools,  etc.,  and  the  farmer  will  see  his  government 
supported,  his  children  educated,  and  the  face  of  his 
country  made  a  paradise  by  the  contributions  of  the 
rich  alone,  without  his  being  called  on  to  spare  a 
cent  from  his  earnings.  The  path  we  are  now  pur- 
suing leads  directly  to  this  end,  which  we  cannot 
fail  to  attain  unless  our  administration  should  fall 
into  unwise  hands. 


40  Jefferson's  Works 

Another  great  field  of  political  experiment  is  open- 
ing in  our  neighborhood,  in  Spanish  America.  I 
fear  the  degrading  ignorance  into  which  their  priests 
and  kings  have  sunk  them,  has  disqualified  them 
from  the  maintenance  or  even  knowledge  of  their 
rights,  and  that  much  blood  may  be  shed  for  little 
improvement  in  their  condition.  Should  their  new 
rulers  honestly  lay  their  shoulders  to  remove  the 
great  obstacles  of  ignorance,  and  press  the  remedies 
of  education  and  information,  they  will  still  be  in 
jeopardy  until  another  generation  comes  into  place, 
and  what  may  happen  in  the  interval  cannot  be 
predicted,  nor  shall  you  or  I  live  to  see  it.  In  these 
cases  I  console  myself  with  the  reflection  that  those 
who  will  come  after  us  will  be  as  wise  as  we  are,  and 
as  able  to  take  care  of  themselves  as  we  have  been. 
I  hope  you  continue  to  preserve  your  health,  and 
that  you  may  long  continue  to  do  so  in  happiness, 
is  the  prayer  of  yours  affectionately. 


TO  GENERAL  THADDEUS  KOSCIUSKO. 

Monticello,  April  13,  l8l I. 
My  dear  General  and  Friend, — My  last  letter 
to  you  was  of  the. 26th  of  February  of  the  last  year. 
Knowing  of  no  particular  conveyance,  I  confided  it 
to  the  Department  of  State,  to  be  put  under  the 
cover  of  their  public  despatches  to  General  Arm- 
strong or  Mr.  Warden.  Not  having  been  able  to  learn 
whether  it  ever  got  to  hand,  I  now  enclose  a  duplicate. 


Correspondence  41 

Knowing  your  affections  to  this  country,  and  the 
interest  you  take  in  whatever  concerns  it,  I  therein 
gave  you  a  tableau  of  its  state  when  I  retired  from 
the  administration.  The  difficulties  and  embar- 
rassments still  continued  in  our  way  by  the  two 
great  belligerent  powers,  you  are  acquainted  with. 
In  other  times,  when  there  was  some  profession  of 
regard  for  right,  some  respect  to  reason,  when  a  gross 
violation  of  these  marked  a  deliberate  design  of 
pointed  injury,  these  would  have  been  causes  of  war. 
But  when  we  see  two  antagonists  contending  ad 
interne  cionem,  so  eager  for  mutual  destruction  as  to 
disregard  all  means,  to  deal  their  blows  in  every 
direction  regardless  on  whom  they  may  fall,  prudent 
bystanders,  whom  some  of  them  may  wound,  instead 
of  thinking  it  cause  to  join  in  the  maniac  contest, 
get  out  of  the  way  as  well  as  they  can,  and  leave 
the  cannibals  to  mutual  ravin.  It  would  have  been 
perfect  Quixotism  in  us  to  have  encountered  these 
Bedlamites,  to  have  undertaken  the  redress  of  all 
wrongs  against  a  world  avowedly  rejecting  all  regard 
to  right.  We  have,  therefore,  remained  in  peace, 
suffering  frequent  injuries,  but,  on  the  whole,  multi- 
plying, improving,  prospering  beyond  all  example. 
It  is  evident  to  all,  that  in  spite  of  great  losses  much 
greater  gains  have  ensued.  When  these  gladiators 
shall  have  worried  each  other  into  ruin  or  reason, 
instead  of  lying  among  the  dead  on  the  bloody  arena, 
we  shall  have  acquired  a  growth  and  strength  which 
will  place  us  hors  dHnsulte.     Peace  then  has  been  our 


42  Jefferson's  Works 

principle,  peace  is  our  interest,  and  peace  has  saved 
to  the  world  this  only  plant  of  free  and  rational 
government  now  existing  in  it.  If  it  can  still  be  pre- 
served, we  shall  soon  see  the  final  extinction  of  our 
t  national  debt,  and  liberation  of  our  revenues  for  the 
defence  and  improvement  of  our  country.  These 
revenues  will  be  levied  entirely  on  the  rich,  the 
business  of  household  manufacture  being  now  so 
established  that  the  farmer  and  laborer  clothe 
themselves  entirely.  The  rich  alone  use  imported 
articles,  and  on  these  alone  the  whole  taxes  of  the 
General  Government  are  levied.  The  poor  man  who 
uses  nothing  but  what  is  made  in  his  own  farm  or 
family,  or  within  his  own  country,  pays  not  a  farthing 
of  tax  to  the  general  government,  but  on  his  salt; 
and  should  we  go  into  that  manufacture  also,  as  is 
probable,  he  will  pay  nothing.  Our  revenues  liber- 
ated by  the  discharge  of  the  public  debt,  and  its 
surplus  applied  to  canals,  roads,  schools,  etc.,  the 
farmer  will  see  his  government  supported,  his  chil- 
dren educated,  and  the  face  of  his  country  made  a 
paradise  by  the  contributions  of  the  rich  alone, 
without  his  being  called  on  to  spend  a  cent  from 
his  earnings.  However,  therefore,  we  may  have  been 
reproached  for  pursuing  our  Quaker  system,  time  will 
affix  the  stamp  of  wisdom  on  it,  and  the  happiness 
and  prosperity  of  our  citizens  will  attest  its  merit. 
And  this,  I  believe,  is  the  only  legitimate  object  of 
government,  and  the  first  duty  of  governors,  and 
not  the  slaughter  of  men  and  devastation  of  the 


Correspondence  43 

countries  placed  under  their  care,  in  pursuit  of  a 
fantastic  honor,  unallied  to  virtue  or  happiness;  or 
in  gratification  of  the  angry  passions,  or  the  pride 
of  administrators,  excited  by  personal  incidents,  in 
which  their  citizens  have  no  concern.  Some  merit 
will  be  ascribed  to  the  converting  such  times  of 
destruction  into  times  of  growth  and  strength  for 
us.  And  behold!  another  example  of  man  rising 
in  his  might  and  bursting  the  chains  of  his  oppressor, 
and  in  the  same  hemisphere.  Spanish  America  is 
all  in  revolt.  The  insurgents  are  triumphant  in 
many  of  the  States,  and  will  be  so  in  all.  But  there 
the  danger  is  that  the  cruel  arts  of  their  oppressors 
have  enchained  their  minds,  have  kept  them  in  the 
ignorance  of  children,  and  as  incapable  of  self- 
government  as  children.  If  the  obstacles  of  bigotry 
and  priest-craft  can  be  surmounted,  we  may  hope 
that  common  sense  will  suffice  to  do  everything 
else.  God  send  them  a  safe  deliverance.  As  to  the 
private  matter  explained  in  my  letter  of  February 
26,  the  time  I  shall  have  occasion  for  your  indul- 
gence will  not  be  longer  than  there  stated,  and  may 
be  shortened  if  either  your  convenience  or  will 
should  require  it.  God  bless  you,  and  give  you 
many  years  of  health  and  happiness,  and  that  you 
may  live  to  see  more  of  the  liberty  you  love  than 
present  appearances  promise. 

P.  S.  Mr.  Barnes  is  now  looking  out  for  bills  for 
your  usual  annual  remittance. 


44  Jefferson's  Works 


TO    JOEL    BARLOW. 

Monticello,  April  16,   1811. 

Dear  Sir, — I  felicitate  you  sincerely  on  your 
destination  to  Paris,  because  I  believe  it  will  con- 
tribute both  to  your  happiness  and  the  public  good. 
Yet  it  is  not  unmixed  with  regret.  What  is  to 
become  of  our  past  revolutionary  history?  Of 
the  antidotes  of  truth  to  the  misrepresentations  of 
Marshall?  This  example  proves  the  wisdom  of  the 
maxim,  never  to  put  off  to  to-morrow  what  can  be 
done  to-day.  But,  putting  aside  vain  regrets,  I 
shall  be  happy  to  hear  from  you  in  your  new  situ- 
ation. I  cannot  offer  you  in  exchange  the  minutiae 
of  the  Cabinet,  the  workings  in  Congress,  or  under- 
workings  of  those  around  them.  General  views 
are  all  which  we  at  a  distance  can  have,  but  general 
views  are  sometimes  better  taken  at  a  distance  than 
nearer.  The  working  of  the  whole  machine  is  some- 
times better  seen  elsewhere  than  at  its  centre.  In 
return  you  can  give  me  the  true  state  of  things  in 
Europe,  what  is  its  real  public  mind  at  present,  its 
disposition  towards  the  existing  authority,  its  secret 
purposes  and  future  prospects,  seasoned  with  the 
literary  news.  I  do  not  propose  this  as  an  equal 
barter,  because  it  is  really  asking  you  to  give  a 
dollar  for  a  shilling.  I  must  leave  the  difference 
to  be  made  up  from  other  motives.  I  have  been 
long  waiting  for  a  safe  opportunity  to  write  to  some 

friends  and  correspondents  in  France,    I  troubled 


Correspondence  45 

Mr.  Warden  with  some  letters,  and  he  kindly  offered 
to  take  all  I  could  get  ready  before  his  departure. 
But  his  departure  seems  not  yet  definitely  settled, 
and  should  he  not  go  with  you,  what  is  in  your  hands 
will  be  less  liable  to  violation  than  in  his.  I  there- 
fore take  the  liberty  of  asking  your  care  of  the  letters 
now  enclosed,  and  their  delivery  through  confiden- 
tial hands.  Most  of  them  are  of  a  complexion  not 
proper  for  the  eye  of  the  police,  and  might  do  injury 
to  those  to  whom  they  are  addressed.  Wishing 
to  yourself  and  Mrs.  Barlow  a  happy  voyage,  and 
that  the  execution  of  the  duties  of  your  mission  may 
be  attended  with  all  agreeable  circumstances,  I 
salute  you  with  assurance  of  my  perfect  esteem  and 
respect. 


TO    ALBERT    GALLATIN. 

Monticello,  April  24,  181 1. 
Dear  Sir, — A  book  confided  to  me  by  a  friend  for 
translation  and  publication  has  for  a  twelvemonth 
past  kept  me  in  correspondence  with  Colonel  Duane. 
We  undertook  to  have  it  translated  and  published. 
The  last  sheets  had  been  revised,  and  in  a  late  letter 
to  him,  I  pressed  the  printing.  I  soon  afterwards 
received  one  from  him  informing  me  that  it  would 
be  much  retarded  by  embarrassments  recently 
brought  on  him  by  his  friends  withdrawing  their 
aid  who  had  been  in  the  habit  of  lending  their  names 
for  his  accommodation  in  the  banks.     He  painted 


46  Jefferson's  Works 

his  situation  as  truly  distressing,  and  intimated  the 
way  in  which  relief  would  be  acceptable.  The 
course  I  pursued  on  the  occasion  will  be  explained 
to  you  in  a  letter  which  I  have  written  to  the  Presi- 
dent, and  asked  the  favor  of  him  to  communicate 
to  you. 

A  difference  of  quite  another  character  gives  me 
more  uneasiness.  No  one  feels  more  painfully  than 
I  do,  the  separation  of  friends,  and  especially  when 
their  sensibilities  are  to  be  daily  harrowed  up  by 
cannibal  newspapers.  In  these  cases,  however,  I 
claim  from  all  parties  the  privilege  of  neutrality, 
and  to  be  permitted  to  esteem  all  as  I  ever  did.  The 
harmony  which  made  me  happy  while  at  Washing- 
ton, is  as  dear  to  me  now  as  then,  and  I  should  be 
equally  afflicted,  were  it,  by  any  circumstance,  to 
be  impaired  as  to  myself.  I  have  so  much  confidence 
in  the  candor  and  good  sense  of  both  parties,  as  to 
trust  that  the  misunderstanding  will  lead  to  no 
sinister  effects,  and  my  constant  prayer  will  be  for 
blessings  on  you  all. 


TO    ROBERT    SMITH,    ESQ. 

Monticello,  April  30,  181 1. 
Dear  Sir, — I  have  learnt,  with  sincere  concern, 
the  circumstances  which  have  taken  place  at  Wash- 
ington. Some  intimations  had  been  quoted  from 
federal  papers,  which  I  had  supposed  false,  as  usual. 
Their  first  confirmation  to  me  was  from  the  National 


Correspondence  47 

Intelligencer.  Still  my  hopes  and  confidence  were 
that  your  retirement  was  purely  a  matter  of  choice 
on  your  part.  A  letter  I  have  received  from  Mr. 
Hollins  makes  me  suppose  there  was  a  more  serious 
misunderstanding  than  I  had  apprehended.  The 
newspapers  indeed  had  said  so,  but  I  yield  little 
faith  to  them.  No  one  feels  more  painfully  than  I 
do  the  separation  of  friends,  and  especially  when 
their  sensibilities  are  to  be  daily  harrowed  up  by 
cannibal  newspapers.  Suffering  myself  under  what- 
ever inflicts  sufferance  on  them,  I  condole  with  them 
mutually,  and  ask  the  mutual  permission  to  esteem 
all,  as  I  ever  did;  not  to  know  their  differences  nor 
ask  the  causes  of  them.  The  harmony  which  made 
me  happy  at  Washington,  is  as  dear  to  me  now  as  it 
was  then,  and  I  should  be  equally  afflicted  were  it 
by  any  circumstance  to  be  impaired  as  to  myself. 
I  have  so  much  confidence  in  the  candor  and  liber- 
ality of  both  parties,  as  to  trust  that  the  misunder- 
standing will  not  be  permitted  to  lead  to  any  sinister 
effects,  and  my  constant  prayer  will  be  for  blessings 
on  you  all. 


TO    COLONEL    WILLIAM    DUANE. 

Monticello,  April  30,    181 1. 

Dear  Sir, — When  I  wrote  you  my  letter  of  March 

28,1  had  great  confidence  that  as  much  at  least  could 

have  been  done  for  you  as  I  therein  supposed.     The 

friend  to  whom  I  confided  the  business  here,  and  who 


48  Jefferson's  Works 

was  and  is  zealous,  had  found  such  readiness  in  those 
to  whom  he  spoke,  as  left  no  other  difficulty  than  to 
find  the  bank  responsible.  But  the  Auroras  which 
came  on  while  this  was  in  transaction,  changed  the 
prospect  altogether,  and  produced  a  general  revulsion 
of  sentiment.  The  President's  popularity  is  high 
through  this  State,  and  nowhere  higher  than  here. 
They  considered  these  papers  as  a  denunciation  of 
war  against  him,  and  instantly  withdrew  their  offers. 
I  cannot  give  you  a  better  account  of  the  effect  of 
the  same  papers  in  Richmond  than  by  quoting  the 
letter  of  a  friend  who  there  undertook  the  same  office, 
and  with  great  cordiality.  In  a  letter  to  me  of  April 
17,  he  says,  "yours  of  the  15th,  in  reply  to  mine  of 
the  10th  instant,  has  been  brought  to  me  from  the 

office  this  instant.     On  showing  it  to  the 

effect  of  it  was  to  dispose  him  to  lend  $500,  and  I 
wrote  my  letter  of  the  10th  to  you  in  a  persuasion 
produced  by  that  incident,  as  well  as  by  its  effect  on 
my  own  feelings,  that  something  important  might 
be  done  for  D.  in  spite  of  the  adverse  spirit,  or  at 
least  distrust,  which  the  equivocal  character  of  his 
paper  has  lately  excited,  equivocal  in  relation  to 
Mr.  Madison.  But  D.'s  three  or  four  last  papers 
contain  such  paragraphs  in  relation  to  Mr.  Madison, 
that  even  your  letter  cannot  now  serve  him.  The 
paper  is  now  regarded  as  an  opposition  one,  and  the 
republicans  here  have  no  sympathy  with  any  one 
who  carries  opposition  colors.  Every  gentleman 
who  mentions  this  subject  in  my  hearing,  speaks 


Correspondence  49 

with  the  warmest  resentment  against  D.  Believe 
me,  Sir,  it  is  impossible  to  do  anything  for  him  here 
now;  and  any  further  attempts  would  only  disable 
me  from  rendering  any  service  to  the  cause  hereafter. 
I  am  persuaded  that  you  will  see  this  subject  in  its 
true  light,  and  be  assured  that  it  is  the  impractica- 
bility of  serving  him,  produced  by  himself,  as  well 
as  the  violation  which  I  feel  it  would  be  of  my  senti- 
ments for  Mr.  Madison,  that  prevents  me  from  pro- 
ceeding." The  firm,  yet  modest  character  of  the 
writer  of  this  letter'  gives  great  weight  to  what  he 
says,  and  I  have  thought  it  best  to  state  it  in  his 
own  terms,  because  it  will  be  better  evidence  to  you 
than  any  general  description  I  could  give  of  the 
impression  made  by  your  late  papers.  Indeed  I 
could  give  none,  for  going  little  from  home,  I  cannot 
personally  estimate  the  public  sentiment.  The  few 
I  see  are  very  unanimous  in  support  of  their  execu- 
tive and  legislative  functionaries.  I  have  thought 
it  well,  too,  that  you  should  know  exactly  the  feel- 
ings here,  because  if  you  get  similar  information 
from  other  respectable  portions  of  the  union,  it  will 
naturally  beget  some  suspicion  in  your  own  mind 
that  finding  such  a  mass  of  opinion  variant  from 
your  own,  you  may  be  under  erroneous  impressions, 
meriting  re-examination  and  consideration.  I  think 
an  editor  should  be  independent,  that  is,  of  personal 
influence,  and  not  be  moved  from  his  opinions  on 
the  mere  authnritv  of  anv  individna]  3ut,  with 
respect  to  the  general  opinion  of  trie  political  section 

VOL.    XIII 4 


So  Jefferson's  Works 

with  which  he  habitually  accords,  his  duty  seems 
very  like  that  of  a  member  of  Congress.  Some  of 
these  indeed  think  that  independence  requires  them 
to  follow  always  their  own  opinion,  without  respect 
for  that  of  others.  This  has  never  been  my  opinion, 
nor  my  practice,  when  I  have  been  of  that  or  any 
other  body.  Differing,  on  a  particular  question, 
from  those  whom  I  knew  to  be  of  the  same  political 
principles  with  myself,  and  with  whom  I  generally 
thought  and  acted,  a  consciousness  of  the  fallibility 
of  the  human  mind,  and  of  my  own  in  particular, 
with  a  respect  for  the  accumulated  judgment  of  my 
friends,  has  induced  me  to  suspect  erroneous  im- 
pressions in  myself,  to  suppose  my  own  opinion 
wrong,  and  to  act  with  them  on  theirs.  The  want 
of  this  spirit  of  compromise,  or  of  self -distrust, 
proudly,  but  falsely,  called  independence,  is  what 
gives  the  federalists  victories  which  they  could  never 
obtain,  if  these  brethren  could  learn  to  respect  the 
opinions  of  their  friends  more  than  of  their  enemies, 
and  prevents  many  able  and  honest  men  from  doing 
all  the  good  they  otherwise  might  do.  I  state  these 
considerations  because  they  have  often  quieted  my 
own  conscience  in  voting  and  acting  on  the  judgment 
of  others  against  my  own;  and  because  they  may 
suggest  doubts  to  yourself  in  the  present  case.  Our 
executive  and  legislative  authorities  are  the  choice 
of  the  nation,  and  possess  the  nation's  confidence. 
They  are  chosen  because  they  possess  it,  and  the 
recent  elections  prove  it  has  not  been  abated  by  the 


Correspondence  Si 

attacks  which  have  for  some  time  been  kept  up 
against  them.  If  the  measures  which  have  been 
pursued  are  approved  by  the  majority,  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  minority  to  acquiesce  and  conform.  It  is  true 
indeed  that  dissentients  have  a  right  to  go  over  to 
the  minority,  and  to  act  with  them.  But  I  do  not 
believe  your  mind  has  contemplated  that  course, 
that  it  has  deliberately  viewed  the  strange  company 
into  which  it  may  be  led,  step  by  step,  unintended 
and  unpercelved  by  itself.  The  example  of  John 
Randolph  is  a  caution  to  all  honest  and  prudent 
men,  to  sacrifice  a  little  of  self-confidence,  and  to 
go  with  their  friends,  although  they  may  sometimes 
think  they  are  going  wrong.  After  so  long  a  course 
of  steady  adherence  to  the  general  sentiments  of 
the  republicans,  it  would  afflict  me  sincerely  to  see. 
you  separate  from  the  body,  become  auxiliary  to 
the  enemies  of  our  government,  who  have  to  you 
been  the  bitterest  enemies,  who  are  now  chuckling 
at  the  prospect  of  division  among  us,  and,  as  I  am 
told,  are  subscribing  for  your  paper.  The  best  indi- 
cation of  error  which  my  experience  has  tested,  is 
the  approbation  of  the  federalists.  Their  conclu- 
sions necessarily  follow  the  false  bias  of  their  prin- 
ciples. I  claim,  however,  no  right  of  guiding  the 
conduct  of  others;  but  have  indulged  myself  in 
these  observations  from  the  sincere  feelings  of  my 
heart.  Retired  from  all  political  interferences  I 
have  been  induced  into  this  one  by  a  desire,  first, 
of   being   useful   to   you   personally,    and   next   of 


S2  Jefferson's  Works 

maintaining  the  republican  ascendency.  Be  its 
effect  what  it  may,  I  am  done  with  it,  and  shall  look 
on  as  an  inactive,  though  not  an  unfeeling,  spectator 
of  what  is  to  ensue.  As  far  as  my  good  will  may  go, 
for  I  can  no  longer  act,  I  shall  adhere  to  my  govern- 
ment executive  and  legislative,  and,  as  long  as  they 
are  republican,  I  shall  go  with  their  measures, 
whether  I  think  them  right  or  wrong;  because  I 
know  they  are  honest,  and  are  wiser  and  better 
informed  than  I  am.  In  doing  this,  however,  I 
shall  not  give  up  the  friendship  of  those  who  differ 
from  me,  and  who  have  equal  right  with  myself  to 
shape  their  own  course.  In  this  disposition  be 
assured  of  my  continued  esteem  and  respect. 

P.  S.  Be  so  good  as  to  consider  the  extract  from 
my  friend's  letter  as  confidential,  because  I  have  not 
his  permission  to  make  this  use  of  it. 


TO    WILLIAM    WIRT. 

Monticello,  May  3,  181 1. 
Dear  Sir, — The  interest  you  were  so  kind  as  to 
take,  at  my  request,  in  the  case  of  Duane,  and  the 
communication  to  you  of  my  first  letter  to  him, 
entitles  you  to  a  communication  of  the  second,  which 
will  probably  be  the  last.  I  have  ventured  to  quote 
your  letter  in  it,  without  giving  your  name,  and  even 
softening  some  of  its  expressions  respecting  him.  It 
is  possible  Duane  may  be  reclaimed  as  to  Mr.  Madi- 


Correspondence  53 

son.  But  as  to  Mr.  Gallatin,  I  despair  of  it.  That 
enmity  took  its  rise  from  a  suspicion  that  Mr.  Gal- 
latin interested  himself  in  the  election  of  their  gov- 
ernor against  the  views  of  Duane  and  his  friends.  I 
do  not  believe  Mr.  Gallatin  meddled  in  it.  I  was  in 
conversation  with  him  nearly  every  day  during  the 
contest,  and  never  heard  him  express  any  bias  in  the 
case.  The  ostensible  grounds  of  the  attack  on  Mr. 
Gallatin  are  all  either  false  or  futile.  1st.  They  urge 
his  conversations  with  John  Randolph.  But  who 
has  revealed  these  conversations?  What  evidence 
have  we  of  them?  Merely  some  oracular  sentences 
from  J.  R.,  uttered  in  the  heat  of  declamation,  and 
never  stated  with  all  their  circumstances.  For 
instance,  that  a  Cabinet  member  informed  him  there 
was  no  Cabinet.  But  Duane  himself  has  always 
denied  there  could  be  a  legal  one.  Besides,  the  fact 
was  true  at  that  moment,  to  wit:  early  in  the  session 
of  Congress.  I  had  been  absent  from  Washington 
from  the  middle  of  July  to  within  three  weeks  of 
their  meeting.  During  the  separation  of  the  mem- 
bers there  could  be  no  consultation,  and  between 
our  return  to  Washington  and  the  meeting  of  Con- 
gress, there  really  had  arisen  nothing  requiring 
general  consultation,  nothing  which  could  not  be 
done  in  the  ordinary  way  by  consultation  between 
the  President  and  the  head  of  the  department  to 
which  the  matter  belonged,  which  is  the  way  every- 
thing is  transacted  which  is  not  difficult  as  well  as 

important,    Mr,  Gallatin  might  therefore  have  said 


54  Jefferson's  Works 

this  as  innocently  as  truly,  and  a  malignant  perver- 
sion of  it  was  perfectly  within  the  character  of  John 
Randolph.     But  the  story  of  the  two  millions.     Mr. 
Gallatin  satisfied  us  that  this  affirmation  of  J.  R. 
was  as  unauthorized  as  the  fact  itself  was  false.     It 
resolves  itself,  therefore,  into  his  inexplicit  letter  to 
a  committee  of  Congress.     As  to  this,  my  own  sur- 
mise was  that  Mr.  Gallatin  might  have  used  some 
hypothetical  expression  in  conversing  on  that  sub- 
ject, which  J.  R.  made  a  positive  one,  and  he  being 
a  duellist,  and  Mr.  Gallatin  with  a  wife  and  children 
depending  on  him  for  their  daily  subsistence,  the 
latter  might  wish  to  avoid  collision  and  insult  from 
such  a  man.     But  they  say  he  was  hostile  to  me. 
This  is  false.     I  was  indebted  to  nobody  for  more 
cordial  aid  than  to  Mr.  Gallatin,  nor  could  any  man 
more  solicitously  interest  himself  in  behalf  of  another 
than   he    did   of   myself.     His    conversations   with 
Erskine  are  objected  as  meddling  out  of  his  depart- 
ment.    Why,  then,  do  they  not  object  Mr.  Smith's 
with  Rose?    The  whole  nearly,  of  that  negotiation, 
as  far  as  it  was  transacted  verbally,  was  by  Mr. 
Smith.     The  business  was   in   this   way  explained 
informally,   and  on  understandings  thus  obtained, 
Mr.   Madison   and  myself  shaped   our  formal  pro- 
ceedings.    In  fact,  the  harmony  among  us  was  so 
perfect,   that  whatever  instrument  appeared  most 
likely  to  effect  the  object,  was  always  used  without 
jealousy.     Mr.  Smith  happened  to  catch  Mr.  Rose's 
favor  and  confidence  at  once.     We  perceived  that 


Correspondence  55 

Rose  would  open  himself  more  frankly  to  him  than 
to  Mr.  Madison,  and  we  therefore  made  him  the 
medium  of  obtaining  an  understanding  of  Mr.  Rose. 
Mr.  Gallatin's  support  of  the  bank  has,  f  believe, 
been  disapproved  by  many.  He  was  not  in  Con- 
gress when  that  was  established,  and  therefore  had 
never  committed  himself,  publicly,  on  the  constitu- 
tionality of  that  institution,  nor  do  I  recollect  ever 
to  have  heard  him  declare  himself  on  it.  I  know  he 
derived  immense  convenience  from  it,  because  they 
gave  the  effect  of  ubiquity  to  his  money  wherever 
deposited.  Money  in  New  Orleans  or  Maine  was 
at  his  command,  and  by  their  agency  transformed 
in  an  instant  into  money  in  London,  in  Paris,  Am- 
sterdam or  Canton.  He  was,  therefore,  cordial  to 
the  bank.  I  often  pressed  him  to  divide  the  public 
deposits  among  all  the  respectable  banks,  being  indig- 
nant myself  at  the  open  hostility  of  that  institution 
to  a  government  on  whose  treasuries  they  were  fat- 
tening. But  his  repugnance  to  it  prevented  my 
persisting.  And  if  he  was  in  favor  of  the  bank,  what 
is  the  amount  of  that  crime  or  error  in  which  he  had 
a  majority  save  one  in  each  House  of  Congress  as 
participators?  Yet  on  these  facts,  endeavors  are 
made  to  drive  from  the  administration  the  ablest 
man  except  the  President,  who  ever  was  in  it,  and 
to  beat  down  the  President  himself,  because  he  is 
unwilling  to  part  with  so  able  a  counsellor.  I  believe 
Duane  to  be  a  very  honest  man  and  sincerely  repub- 
lican;   but  his  passions  are  stronger  than  his  pru- 


5°  Jetierson's  Works 

dence,  and  his  personal  as  well  as  general  antipathies 
render  him  very  intolerant.  These  traits  lead  him 
astray,  and  require  his  readers,  even  those  who  value 
him  for  his  steady  support  of  the  republican  cause, 
to  be  on  their  guard  against  his  occasional  aberra- 
tions. He  is  eager  for  war  against  England,  hence 
his  abuse  of  the  two  last  Congresses.  But  the  people 
wish  for  peace.  The  re-elections  of  the  same  men 
prove  it.  And  indeed,  war  against  Bedlam  would 
be  just  as  rational  as  against  Europe  in  its  present 
condition  of  total  demoralization.  When  peace 
becomes  more  losing  than  war,  we  may  prefer  the 
latter  on  principles  of  pecuniary  calculation.  But 
for  us  to  attempt,  by  war,  to  reform  all  Europe,  and 
bring  them  back  to  principles  of  morality  and  a 
respect  for  the  equal  rights  of  nations,  would  show 
us  to  be  only  maniacs  of  another  character.  We 
should,  indeed,  have  the  merit  of  the  good  intentions 
as  well  as  of  the  folly  of  the  hero  of  La  Mancha.  But 
I  am  getting  beyond  the  object  of  my  letter,  and  will 
therefore  here  close  it  with  assurances  of  my  great 
esteem  and  respect. 


TO    WILLIAM    WIRT. 

Monticello,  May  3,   181 1. 

I  have  rejoiced  to  see  Ritchie  declare  himself  in 
favor  of  the  President  on  the  late  attack  against  him, 
and  wish  he  may  do  the  same  as  to  Mr.  Gallatin.  I 
am  sure  he  would  if  his  information  was  full.     I  have 


Correspondence  57 

not  an  intimacy  with  him  which  might  justify  my 
writing  to  him  directly,  but  the  enclosed  letter  to  you 
is  put  into  such  a  form  as  might  be  shown  to  him,  if 
you  think  proper  to  do  so.  Perhaps  the  facts  stated  in 
it,  probably  unknown  to  him,  may  have  some  effect. 
But  do  in  this  as  you  think  best.  Be  so  good  as  to 
return  the  letter  to  Duane,  being  my  only  copy,  and 
to  be  assured  of  my  affectionate  esteem  and  respect 


TO    JOHN    HOLLINS,    ESQ. 

Monticello,  May  5,  181 1. 
Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  April  17th  came  duly 
to  hand.  Nobody  has  regretted  more  sincerely 
than  myself,  the  incidents  which  have  happened  at 
Washington.  The  early  intimations  which  I  saw 
quoted  from  federal  papers  were  disregarded  by  me, 
because  falsehood  is  their  element.  The  first  con- 
firmation was  from  the  National  Intelligencer,  soon 
followed  by  the  exultations  of  other  papers  whose 
havoc  is  on  the  feelings  of  the  virtuous.  Sincerely 
the  friend  of  all  the  parties,  I  ask  of  none  why  they 
have  fallen  out  by  the  way,  and  would  gladly  infuse 
the  oil  and  wine  of  the  Samaritan  into  all  their 
wounds.  I  hope  that  time,  the  assuager  of  all  evils, 
will  heal  these  also ;  and  I  pray  from  them  all  a  con- 
tinuance of  their  affection,  and  to  be  permitted  to 
bear  to  all  the  same  unqualified  esteem.  Of  one 
thing  I  am  certain,  that  they  will  not  suffer  personal 
dissatisfactions  to  endanger  the  republican  cause. 


58  Jefferson's  Works 

Their  principles,  I  know,  are  far  above  all  private 
considerations.  And  when  we  reflect  that  the  eyes 
of  the  virtuous  all  over  the  earth  are  turned  with 
anxiety  on  us,  as  the  only  depositories  of  the  sacred 
fire  of  liberty,  and  that  our  falling  into  anarchy 
would  decide  forever  the  destinies  of  mankind,  and 
seal  the  political  heresy  that  man  is  incapable  of 
self-government,  the  only  contest  between  divided 
friends  should  be  who  will  dare  farthest  into  the 
ranks  of  the  common  enemy.  With  respect  to  Mr. 
Foster's  mission,  it  cannot  issue  but  as  Rose's  and 
Jackson's  did.  It  can  no  longer  be  doubted  that 
Great  Britain  means  to  claim  the  ocean  as  her  con- 
quest, and  to  suffer  not  even  a  cock-boat,  as  they 
express  it,  to  traverse  it  but  on  paying  them  a  transit 
duty  to  support  the  very  fleet  which  is  to  keep  the 
nations  under  tribute,  and  to  rivet  the  yoke  around 
their  necks.  Although  their  government  has  never 
openly  avowed  this,  yet  their  orders  of  council,  in 
their  original  form,  were  founded  on  this  principle, 
and  I  have  observed  for  years  past,  that  however 
ill  success  may  at  times  have  induced  them  to  amuse 
by  negotiation,  they  have  never  on  any  occasion 
dropped  a  word  disclaiming  this  pretension,  nor  one 
which  they  would  have  to  retract  when  they  shall 
judge  the  times  ripe  for  openly  asserting  it.  Pro- 
traction is  therefore  the  sole  object  of  Foster's  mis- 
sion. They  do  not  wish  war  with  us,  but  will  meet 
it  rather  than  relinquish  their  purpose. 

With  earnest  prayers  to  all  my  friends  to  cherish 


Correspondence  59 

mutual  good  will,  to  promote  harmony  and  con- 
ciliation, and  above  all  things  to  let  the  love  of  our 
country  soar  above  all  minor  passions,  I  tender  you 
the  assurance  of  my  affectionate  esteem  and  respect. 


TO    COLONEL   JAMES    MONROE. 

Monticello,  May  5,   181 1. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  on  your  departure  from 
Richmond,  came  to  hand  in  due  time.  Although  I 
may  not  have  been  among  the  first,  I  am  certainly 
with  the  sincerest,  who  congratulate  you  on  your 
entrance  into  the  national  councils.  Your  value 
there  has  never  been  unduly  estimated  by  those 
whom  personal  feelings  did  not  misguide.  The  late 
misunderstandings  at  Washington  have  been  a  sub- 
ject of  real  concern  to  me.  I  know  that  the  dissolu- 
tions of  personal  friendship  are  among  the  most 
painful  occurrences  in  human  life.  I  have  sincere 
esteem  for  all  who  have  been  affected  by  them, 
having  passed  with  them  eight  years  of  great  har- 
monv  and  affection.  These  incidents  are  rendered 
more  distressing  in  our  country  than  elsewhere, 
because  our  printers  ravin  on  the  agonies  of  their 
victims,  as  wolves  do  on  the  blood  of  the  lamb.  But 
the  printers  and  the  public  are  very  different  per- 
sonages. The  former  may  lead  the  latter  a  little 
out  of  their  track,  while  the  deviation  is  insensible; 
but  the  moment  they  usurp  their  direction  and  that 
of  their  government,  they  will  be  reduced  to  their 


6o  Jefferson's  Works 

true  places.  The  two  last  Congresses  have  been 
the  theme  of  the  most  licentious  reprobation  for 
printers  thirsting  after  war,  some  against  France 
and  some  against  England.  But  the  people  wish 
for  peace  with  both.  They  feel  no  incumbency  on 
them  to  become  the  reformers  of  the  other  hemi- 
sphere, and  to  inculcate,  with  fire  and  sword,  a 
return  to  moral  order.  When,  indeed,  peace  shall 
become  more  losing  than  war,  they  may  owe  to  their 
interests  what  these  Quixotes  are  clamoring  for  on 
false  estimates  of  honor.  The  public  are  unmoved 
by  these  clamors,  as  the  re-election  of  their  legis- 
lators shows,  and  they  are  firm  to  their  executive 
on  the  subject  of  the  more  recent  clamors. 

We  are  suffering  here,  both  in  the  gathered  and 
the  growing  crop.  The  lowness  of  the  river,  and 
great  quantity  of  produce  brought  to  Milton  this 
year,  render  it  almost  impossible  to  get  our  crops 
to  market.  This  is  the  case  of  mine  as  well  as  yours, 
and  the  Hessian  fly  appears  alarmingly  in  our  growing 
crops.     Everything  is  in  distress  for  the  want  of  rain. 

Present  me  respectfully  to  Mrs.  Monroe,  and 
accept  yourself  assurances  of  my  constant  and 
affectionate  esteem. 


TO  JOHN  SEVERIN  VATER,  PROFESSOR  AT  KONIGSBERG. 

Monticello,  May  n,   18.11. 
Sir, — Your  favor  of  November  4,   1809,  did  not 
get  to  my  hands  till  a  twelvemonth  after  its  date. 


Correspondence  61 

Be  pleased  to  accept  my  thanks  for  the  publication 
you  were  pleased  to  send  me.  That  for  Dr.  Barton 
I  forwarded  to  him.  His  researches  into  the  Indian 
languages  of  our  continent  being  continued,  I  hope 
it  will  be  in  his  power  to  make  to  you  communica- 
tions useful  to  the  object  you  are  pursuing.  This 
will  lessen  to  me  the  regret  that  my  retirement  into 
an  interior  part  of  the  country,  as  well  as  my  age 
and  little  intercourse  with  the  world,  will  scarcely 
afford  me  opportunities  of  contributing  to  your 
information.  It  is  extremely  to  be  desired  that 
your  researches  should  receive  every  aid  and  en- 
couragement. I  have  long  considered  the  filiation 
of  languages  as  the  best  proof  we  can  ever  obtain 
of  the  filiation  of  nations.  With  my  best  wishes 
for  the  success  of  your  undertaking,  accept  the 
assurances  of  my  high  consideration  and  respect. 


TO    COUNT    JOHN    POTOCKI. 

Monticello,  May  12,  181 1. 
Sir, — I  have  received  your  letter  of  August  19th, 
and  with  it  the  volume  of  chronology  you  were  so 
kind  as  to  send  me,  for  which  be  pleased  to  accept 
my  thanks.  It  presents  a  happy  combination  of 
sparse  and  unconnected  facts,  which,  brought 
together  and  fitted  to  each  other,  forms  a  whole  of 
symmetry  as  well  as  of  system.  It  is  as  a  gleam 
of  light  flashed  over  the  dark  abyss  of  times  past. 
Nothing  would  be  more  flattering  to  me  than  \o 


62  Jefferson's  Works 

give  aid  to  your  inquiries  as  to  this  continent,  and 
to  weave  its  ancient  history  into  the  web  of  the  old 
world;  and  with  this  view,  to  accept  the  invitation 
to  a  correspondence  with  you  on  the  subject.  But 
time  tells  me  I  am  nearly  done  with  the  history  of 
the  world;  that  I  am  now  far  advanced  in  the  last 
chapter  of  my  own,  and  that  its  last  verse  will  be 
read  out  ere  a  few  letters  could  pass  between  St. 
Petersburg  and  Monticello.  I  shall  serve  you  there- 
fore more  permanently,  by  bequeathing  to  you 
another  correspondent,  more  able,  more  industrious, 
and  more  likely  to  continue  in  life  than  myself.  Dr. 
Benjamin  S.  Barton,  one  of  the  professors  of  the 
College  of  Philadelphia,  is  learned  in  the  antiquities 
of  this  country,  has  employed  much  time  and  atten- 
tion on  researches  into  them,  is  active  and  punctual, 
and  will,  I  think,  better  fulfil  your  wishes  than  any 
other  person  in  the  United  States.  If  you  will  have 
the  goodness  to  address  a  letter  to  him  on  the  sub- 
ject, with  the  inquiries  you  wish  to  make,  he  will,  I 
am  sure,  set  a  just  value  on  the  correspondence  pro- 
posed, for  which  I  shall  take  care  to  prepare  him, 
and  in  committing  to  better  hands  an  honor  which 
in  earlier  life  I  should  have  taken  a  pleasure  in 
endeavoring  to  merit,  I  make  a  sacrifice  of  my  own 
self-love,  which  is  the  strongest  proof  I  can  give  you 
of  the  high  respect  and  consideration  of  which  I  now 
tender  you  the  assurance. 


Correspondence  63 

TO    THE    PRESIDENT    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 
(JAMES    MADISON). 

MONTICELLO,    July    3,    l8ll. 

Dear  Sir, — I  have  seen  with  very  great  concern 
the  late  address  of  Mr.  Smith  to  the  public.  He  has 
been  very  ill-advised,  both  personally  and  publicly. 
As  far  as  I  can  judge  from  what  I  hear,  the  impres- 
sion made  is  entirely  unfavorable  to  him.  Every 
man's  own  understanding  readily  answers  all  the 
facts  and  insinuations,  one  only  excepted,  and  for 
that  they  look  for  explanations  without  any  doubt 
that  they  will  be  satisfactory.  What  is  Irving's 
case?  I  have  answered  the  inquiries  of  several  on 
this  head,  telling  them  at  the  same  time  what  was 
really  the  truth,  that  the  failure  of  my  memory 
enabled  me  to  give  them  rather  conjectures  than 
recollections.  For  in  truth,  I  have  but  indistinct 
recollections  of  the  case.  I  know  that  what  was 
done  was  on  a  joint  consultation  between  us,  and 
I  have  no  fear  that  what  we  did  will  not  have  been 
correct  and  cautious.  What  I  retain  of  the  case,  on 
being  reminded  of  some  particulars,  will  reinstate 
the  whole  firmly  in  my  remembrance,  and  enable 
me  to  state  them  to  inquirers  with  correctness,  which 
is  the  more  important  from  the  part  I  bore  in  them. 
I  must  therefore  ask  the  favor  of  you  to  give  me  a 
short  outline  of  the  facts,  which  may  correct  as  well 
as  supply  my  own  recollections.  But  who  is  to  give 
an  explanation  to  the  public  ?  not  yourself,  certainly. 


64  Jefferson's  Works 

The  Chief  Magistrate  cannot  enter  the  arena  of  the 
newspapers.  At  least  the  occasion  should  be  of  a 
much  higher  order.  I  imagine  there  is  some  pen 
at  Washington  competent  to  it.  Perhaps  the  best 
form  would  be  that  of  some  one  personating  the 
friend  of  Irving,  some  one  apparently  from  the 
North.  Nothing  labored  is  requisite.  A  short  and 
simple  statement  of  the  case  will,  I  am  sure,  satisfy 
the  public.  We  are  in  the  midst  of  a  so-so  harvest, 
probably  one-third  short  of  the  last.  We  had  a  very 
fine  rain  on  Saturday  last.  Ever  affectionately 
yours. 


TO   JOEL    BARLOW. 

MONTICELLO,    July    22,    l8ll. 

Dear  Sir, — I  had  not  supposed  a  letter  would 
still  find  you  at  Washington.  Yours  by  late  post 
tells  me  otherwise.  Those  of  May  2d  and  15th  had 
been  received  in  due  time.  With  respect  to  my 
books,  lodged  at  the  President's  house,  if  you  should 
see  Mr.  Coles,  the  President's  Secretary,  and  be  so 
good  as  to  mention  it,  he  will  be  so  kind  as  to  have 
them  put  on  board  some  vessel  bound  to  Richmond, 
addressed  to  the  care  of  Gibson  &  Jefferson  there, 
whom  he  knows.  Your  doubts  whether  any  good 
can  be  effected  with  the  Emperor  of  France  are  too 
well  grounded.  He  has  understanding  enough,  but 
it  is  confined  to  particular  lines.  Of  the  principles 
and   advantages   of   commerce   he    appears   to   be 


Correspondence  65 

ignorant,  and  his  domineering  temper  deafens  him 
moreover  to  the  dictates  of  interest,  of  honor  and 
of  morality.  A  nation  like  ours,  recognizing  no 
arrogance  of  language  or  conduct,  can  never  enjoy 
the  favor  of  such  a  character.  The  impression,  too, 
which  our  public  has  been  made  to  receive  from  the 
different  styles  of  correspondence  used  by  two  of  our 
foreign  agents,  has  increased  the  difficulties  of  steer- 
ing between  the  bristling  pride  of  the  two  parties. 
It  se*ems  to  point  out  the  Quaker  style  of  plain 
reason,  void  of  offence:— the  suppression  of  all 
passion,  and  chaste  language  of  good  sense.  Heaven 
prosper  your  endeavors  for  our  good,  and  preserve 
you  in  health  and  happiness. 


TO    COLONEL    WILLIAM    DUANE. 

MONTICELLO,    July    25,    l8ll. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  letter  of  the  5th,  with  the 
volume  of  Montesquieu  accompanying  it,  came  to 
hand  in  due  time;  the  latter  indeed  in  lucky  time, 
as,  enclosing  it  by  the  return  of  post,  I  was  enabled 
to  get  it  into  Mr.  Warden's  hands  before  his  depar- 
ture, for  a  friend  abroad  to  whom  it  will  be  a  most 
acceptable  offering.  Of  the  residue  of  the  copies  I 
asked,  I  would  wish  to  receive  one  well  bound  for 
my  own  library,  the  others  in  boards  as  that  before 
sent.  One  of  these  in  boards  may  come  to  me  by 
post,  for  use  until  the  others  are  received,  which  I 
would  prefer  having  sent  by  water,  as  vessels  depart 

VOL.  XIII — 5 


66  Jefferson's  Works 

almost  daily  from  Philadelphia  for  Richmond. 
Messrs.  Gibson  &  Jefferson  of  that  place  will  receive 
and  forward  the  packet  to  me.  Add  to  it,  if  you 
please,  a  copy  of  Franklin's  works,  bound,  and  send 
me  by  post  a  note  of  the  amount  of  the  whole,  and 
of  my  newspaper  account,  which  has  been  suffered 
to  run  in  arrear  by  the  difficulty  of  remitting  small 
and  fractional  sums  to  a  distance,  from  a  canton 
having  only  its  local  money,  and  little  commercial 
intercourse  beyond  its  own  limits. 

I  learnt  with  sincere  regret  that  my  former  letters 
had  given  you  pain.  Nothing  could  be  further  from 
their  intention.  What  I  had  said  and  done  was  from 
the  most  friendly  dispositions  towards  yourself,  and 
from  a  zeal  for  maintaining  the  Republican  ascen- 
dency. Federalism,  stripped  as  it  now  nearly  is, 
of  its  landed  and  laboring  support,  is  monarchism 
and  Anglicism,  and  whenever  our  own  dissensions 
shall  let  these  in  upon  us,  the  last  ray  of  free  govern- 
ment closes  on  the  horizon  of  the  world.  I  have 
been  lately  reading  Komarzewski's  coup  oVceil  on 
the  history  of  Poland.  Though  without  any  charms 
of  style  or  composition,  it  gives  a  lesson  which  all 
our  countrymen  should  study;  the  example  of  a 
country  erased  from  the  map  of  the  world  by  the 
dissensions  of  its  own  citizens.  The  papers  of  every 
day  read  them  the  counter  lesson  of  the  impossibility 
of  subduing  a  people  acting  with  an  undivided  will 
Spain,  under  all  her  disadvantages,  physical  and 
mental,   is  an  encouraging  example  of  this.     She 


Correspondence  67 

proves,  too,  another  truth  not  less  valuable,  that  a 
people  having  no  king  to  sell  them  for  a  mess  of 
pottage  for  himself,  no  shackles  to  restrain  their 
powers  of  self-defence,  find  resources  within  them- 
selves equal  to  every  trial.  This  we  did  during  the 
Revolutionary  War,  and  this  we  can  do  again,  let 
who  will  attack  us,  if  we  act  heartily  with  one 
another.  This  is  my  creed.  To  the  principles  of 
union  I  sacrifice  all  minor  differences  of  opinion. 
These,  like  differences  of  face,  are  a  law  of  our  nature, 
and  should  be  viewed  with  the  same  tolerance.  The 
clouds  which  have  appeared  for  some  time  to  be 
gathering  around  us,  have  given  me  anxiety  lest  an 
enemy,  always  on  the  watch,  always  prompt  and 
firm,  and  acting  in  well-disciplined  phalanx,  should 
find  an  opening  to  dissipate  hopes,  with  the  loss  of 
which  I  would  wish  that  of  life  itself.  To  myself 
personally  the  sufferings  would  be  short.  The 
powers  of  life  have  declined  with  me  more  in  the 
last  six  months  than  in  as  many  preceding  years. 
A  rheumatic  indisposition,  under  which  your  letter 
found  me,  has  caused  this  delay  in  acknowledging 
its  receipt,  and  in  the  expressions  of  regret  that  I 
had  inadvertently  said  or  done  anything  which  had  • 
given  you  uneasiness.  I  pray  you  to  be  assured  1 
that  no  unkind  motive  directed  me,  and  that  my 
sentiments  of  friendship  and  respect  continue  the 
same. 


68  Jefferson's  Works 


TO   JAMES    OGILVIE. 

MONTICELLO,    AugUSt    4,    l8ll. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  May  24th  was  very  long 
on  its  passage  to  me.  It  gave  us  all  pleasure  to  learn 
from  yourself  the  progress  of  your  peregrination,  and 
your  prospect  of  approaching  rest  for  awhile,  among 
our  western  brethren— of  urest  for  the  body  some, 
none  for  the  mind. "  To  that,  action  is  said  to  be  all 
its  joy;  and  we  have  no  more  remarkable  proof  of 
it  than  in  yourself.  The  newspapers  have  kept  us 
informed  of  the  splendid  course  you  have  run,  and 
of  the  flattering  impressions  made  on  the  public 
mind,  and  which  must  have  been  so  grateful  to  your- 
self. The  new  intellectual  feast  you  are  preparing 
for  them  in  your  western  retirement,  will  excite 
new  appetites,  and  will  be  hailed  like  the  returning 
sun,  when  he  re-appears  in  the  East.  Your  peri- 
patetic enterprise,  when  first  made  known  to  us, 
alarmed  our  apprehensions  for  you,  lest  the  taste  of 
the  times,  and  of  our  country,  should  not  be  up  to 
the  revival  of  this  classical  experiment.  Much  to 
their  credit,  however,  unshackled  by  the  prejudices 
which  chain  down  the  minds  of  the  common  mass 
of  Europe,  the  experiment  has  proved  that,  where 
thought  is  free  in  its  range,  we  need  never  fear  to 
hazard  what  is  good  in  itself.  This  sample  of  the 
American  mind  is  an  additional  item  for  the  flatter- 
ing picture  your  letter  presents  of  our  situation,  and 

our  prospects,    I  firmly  believe  in  them  all;   and 


Correspondence  69 

that  human  nature  has  never  looked  forward,  under 
circumstances  so  auspicious,  either  for  the  sum  of 
happiness,  or  the  spread  of  surface  provided  to 
receive  it.  Very  contrary  opinions  are  inculcated 
in  Europe,  and  in  England  especially,  where  I  much 
doubt  if  you  would  be  tolerated  in  presenting  the 
views  you  propose.  The  English  have  been  a  wise, 
a  virtuous  and  truly  estimable  people.  But  com- 
merce and  a  corrupt  government  have  rotted  them 
to  the  core.  Every  generous,  nay,  every  just  senti- 
ment, is  absorbed  in  the  thirst  for  gold.  I  speak  of 
their  cities,  which  we  may  certainly  pronounce  to 
be  ripe  for  despotism,  and  fitted  for  no  other  govern- 
ment. Whether  the  leaven  of  the  agricultural  body 
is  sufficient  to  regenerate  the  residuary  mass,  and 
maintain  it  in  a  sound  state,  under  any  reformation 
of  government,  may  well  be  doubted.  Nations,  like 
individuals,  wish  to  enjoy  a  fair  reputation.  It  is 
therefore  desirable  for  us  that  the  slanders  on  our 
country,  disseminated  by  hired  or  prejudiced  travel- 
lers, should  be  corrected;  but  politics,  like  religion, 
hold  up  the  torches  of  martyrdom  to  the  reformers 
of  error.  Nor  is  it  in  the  theatre  of  Ephesus  alone 
that  tumults  have  been  excited  when  the  crafts  were 
in  danger.  You  must  be  cautious,  therefore,  in  tell- 
ing unacceptable  truths  beyond  the  water.  You 
wish  me  to  suggest  any  subject  which  occurs  to 
myself  as  fit  for  the  rostrum.  But  your  own  selec- 
tion has  proved  you  would  have  been  aided  by  no 
counsel,  and  that  you  can  best  judge  of  the  topics 


7°  Jefferson's  Works 

which  open  to  your  own  mind  a  field  for  develop- 
ment, and  promise  to  your  hearers  instruction  better 
adapted  to  the  useful  purposes  of  society,  than  the 
weekly  disquisitions  of  their  hired  instructors.  All 
the  efforts  of  these  people  are  directed  to  the  main- 
tenance of  the  artificial  structure  of  their  craft,  view- 
ing but  as  a  subordinate  concern  the  inculcation  of 
morality.  If  we  will  be  but  Christians,  according 
to  their  schemes  of  Christianity,  they  will  compound 
good-naturedly  with  our  immoralities. 

Cannot  your  circuit  be  so  shaped  as  to  lead  you 
through  our  neighborhood  on  your  return?  It 
would  give  us  all  great  pleasure  to  see  you,  if  it  be 
only  en  passant,  for  after  such  a  survey  of  varied 
country,  we  cannot  flatter  ourselves  that  ours  would 
be  the  selected  residence.  But  whether  you  can 
visit  us  or  not,  I  shall  always  be  happy  to  hear  from 
you,  and  to  know  that  you  succeed  in  whatever  you 
undertake.  With  these  assurances  accept  those  of 
great  esteem  and  respect  from  myself  and  all  the 
members  of  my  family. 

P.  S.  Since  writing  the  above,  an  interesting  sub- 
ject occurs.  What  would  you  think  of  a  discourse 
on  the  benefit  of  the  union,  and  miseries  which  would 
follow  a  separa  ion  of  the  States,  to  be  exemplified 
in  the  eternal  and  wasting  wars  of  Europe,  in  the 
pillage  and  profligacy  to  which  these  lead,  and  the 
abject  oppression  and  degradation  to  which  they 
reduce    its    inhabitants?     Painted    by    your    vivid 


Correspondence  71 

pencil,  what  could  make  deeper  impressions,  and 
what  impressions  could  come  more  home  to  our 
concerns,  or  kindle  a  livelier  sense  of  our  present 
blessings? 


TO   JUDGE    ARCHIBALD    STUART. 

MONTICELLO,    AugUSt    8,    l8ll. 

Dear  Sir, — I  ask  the  favor  of  you  to  purchase 
for  me  as  much  fresh  timothy  seed  as  the  enclosed 
bill  will  pay  for,  pack  and  forward,  and  that  you 
will  have  the  goodness  to  direct  it  to  be  lodged  at 
Mr.  Leitch's  store  in  Charlottesville  by  the  waggoner 
who  brings  it.  You  see  how  bold  your  indulgencies 
make  me  in  intruding  on  your  kindness. 

I  do  not  know  that  the  government  means  to  make 
known  what  has  passed  between  them  and  Foster 
before  the  meeting  of  Congress;  but  in  the  mean- 
time individuals,  who  are  in  the  way,  think  they 
have  a  right  to  fish  it  out,  and  in  this  way  the  sum 
of  it  has  become  known.  Great  Britain  has  certainly 
come  forward  and  declared  to  our  government  by 
an  official  paper,  that  the  conduct  of  France  towards 
her  during  this  war  has  obliged  her  to  take  possession 
of  the  ocean,  and  to  determine  that  no  commerce 
shall  be  carried  on  with  the  nations  connected  with 
France;  that,  however,  she  is  disposed  to  relax  in 
this  determination  so  far  as  to  permit  the  commerce 
which  may  be  carried  on  through  the  British  ports. 
I  have,  for  three  or  four  years,  been  confident  that, 


72  Jefferson's  Works 

knowing  that  her  own  resources  were  not  adequate 
to  the  maintenance  of  her  present  navy,  she  meant 
with  it  to  claim  the  conquest  of  the  ocean,  and  to 
permit  no  nation  to  navigate  it,  but  on  payment 
of  a  tribute  for  the  maintenance  of  the  fleet  necessary 
to  secure  that  dominion.  A  thousand  circumstances 
brought  together  left  me  without  a  doubt  that  that 
policy  directed  all  her  conduct,  although  not  avowed. 
This  is  the  first  time  she  has  thrown  off  the  mask. 
The  answer  and  conduct  of  the  government  have 
been  what  they  ought  to  have  been,  and  Congress 
is  called  a  little  earlier,  to  be  ready  to  act  on  the 
receipt  of  the  reply,  for  which  time  has  been  given. 
God  bless  you.     From  yours  affectionately. 


TO  GENERAL  HENRY  DEARBORN. 

Poplar  Forest,  August  14,  181 1. 
Dear  General  and  Friend, — I  am  happy  to 
learn  that  your  own  health  is  good,  and  I  hope 
it  will  long  continue  so.  The  friends  we  left 
behind  us  have  fallen  out  by  the  way.  I  sin- 
cerely lament  it,  because  I  sincerely  esteem 
them  all,  and  because  it  multiplies  schisms  where 
harmony  is  safety.  As  far  as  I  have  been  able  to 
judge,  however,  it  has  made  no  sensible  impression 
against  the  government.  Those  who  were  murmur- 
ing before  are  a  little  louder  now;  but  the  mass  of 
our  citizens  is  firm  and  unshaken.  It  furnishes, 
as  an  incident,  another  proof  that  they  are  perfectly 


Correspondence  73 

equal  to  the  purposes  of  self-government,  and  that 
we   have   nothing    to    fear   for    its    stability.     The 
spirit,    indeed,    which   manifests    itself   among   the 
tories  of  your  quarter,  although  I  believe  there  is 
a  majority  there  sufficient  to  keep  it  down  in  peace- 
able times,  leaves  me  not  without  some  disquietude. 
Should  the  determination  of  England,  now  formally 
expressed,  to  take  possession  of  the  ocean,  and  to 
suffer  no  commerce  on  it  but  through  her  ports, 
force  a  war  upon  us,   I  foresee  a  possibility  of  a 
separate  treaty  between  her  and  your  Essex  men, 
on  the  principles  of  neutrality  and  commerce.    Pick- 
ering  here,    and   his   nephew   Williams   there,    can 
easily  negotiate  this.     Such  a  lure  to  the  quietists 
in  our  ranks  with  you,  might  recruit  theirs  to  a 
majority.     Yet,   excluded  as  they  would  be  from 
intercourse  with  the  rest  of  the  Union  and  of  Europe, 
I  scarcely  see  the  gain  they  would  propose  to  them- 
selves, even  for  the  moment.     The  defection  would 
certainly  disconcert  the  other  States,  but   it  could 
not   ultimately   endanger   their   safety.     They   are 
adequate,  in  all  points,  to  a  defensive  war.     How- 
ever, I  hope  your  majority,  with  the  aid  it  is  entitled 
to,  will  save  us  from  this  trial,  to  which  I  think  it 
possible  we  are  advancing.     The  death  of  George 
may  come  to  our  relief;   but  I  fear  the  dominion  of 
the  sea  is  the  insanity  of  the  nation   itself  also. 
Perhaps,  if  some  stroke  of  fortune  were  to  rid  us  at 
the  same  time  from  the  Mammoth  of  the  land  as 
well  as  the  Leviathan  of  the  ocean,  the  people  of 


74  Jefferson's  Works 

England  might  lose  their  fears,  and  recover  their 
sober  senses  again.  Tell  my  old  friend,  Governor 
Gerry,  that  I  gave  him  glory  for  the  rasping  with 
which  he  rubbed  down  his  herd  of  traitors.  Let 
them  have  justice  and  protection  against  personal 
violence,  but  no  favor.  Powers  and  preeminences 
conferred  on  them  are  daggers  put  into  the  hands 
of  assassins,  to  be  plunged  into  our  own  bosoms  in 
the  moment  the  thrust  can  go  home  to  the  heart. 
Moderation  can  never  reclaim  them.  They  deem 
it  timidity,  and  despise  without  fearing  the  tame- 
ness  from  which  it  flows.  Backed  by  England,  they 
never  lose  the  hope  that  their  day  is  to  come,  when 
the  terrorism  of  their  earlier  power  is  to  be  merged 
in  the  more  gratifying  system  of  deportation  and 
the  guillotine.  Being  now  hors  de  combat  myself, 
I  resign  to  others  these  cares.  A  long  attack  of 
rheumatism  has  greatly  enfeebled  me,  and  warns 
me  that  they  will  not  very  long  be  within  my  ken. 
But  you  may  have  to  meet  the  trial,  and  in  the 
focus  of  its  fury.  God  send  you  a  safe  deliverance, 
a  happy  issue  out  of  all  afflictions,  personal  and 
public,  with  long  life,  long  health,  and  friends  as 
sincerely  attached  as  yours  affectionately. 


TO    DR.    BENJAMIN    RUSH. 

Poplar  Forest,  August  17,  181 1. 
Dear  Sir, — I  write  to  you  from  a  place  ninety 
miles  from   Monticello,   near  the   New   London   of 


Correspondence  75 

this  State,  which  I  visit  three  or  four  times  a  year, 
and  stay  from  a  fortnight  to  a  month  at  a  time.     I 
have  fixed  myself  comfortably,   keep   sorrie  books 
here,  bring  others  occasionally,  am  in  the  solitude 
of  a  hermit,  and  quite  at  leisure  to  attend  to  my 
absent  friends.     I  note  this  to  show  that  I  am  not 
in  a  situation  to  examine  the  dates  of  our  letters, 
whether  I  have  overgone  the  annual  period  of  asking 
how  you  do?     I  know  that  within  that  time  I  have 
received  one  or  more  letters  from  you,  accompanied 
by   a   volume    of   your   introductory   lectures,    for 
which  accept  my  thanks.     I  have  read  them  with 
pleasure  and  edification,  for  I  acknowledge  facts  in 
medicine  as  far  as  they  go,  distrusting  only  their 
extension  by  theory.     Having  to  conduct  my  grand- 
son  through   his    course   of   mathematics,    I   have 
resumed   that   study   with   great   avidity.     It   was 
ever  my  favorite  one.     We  have  no  theories  there, 
no  uncertainties  remain  on  the  mind;   all  is  demon- 
stration and  satisfaction.     I  have  forgotten  much, 
and  recover  it  with  more  difficulty  than  when  in 
the  vigor  of  my  mind  I  originally  acquired  it.     It 
is  wonderful  to  me  that  old  men  should  not  be 
sensible    that    their   minds    keep    pace    with    their 
bodies  in  the  progress  of  decay.     Our  old  revolution- 
ary friend  Clinton,  for  example,  who  was  a  hero, 
but  never  a  man  of  mind,  is  wonderfully  jealous 
on  this  head.     He  tells  eternally  the  stories  of  his 
younger  days  to  prove  his  memory,  as  if  memory 
and  reason  were  the  same  faculty.     Nothing  betrays 


76  Jefferson's  Works 

imbecility  so  much  as  the  being  insensible  of  it.  Had 
not  a  conviction  of  the  danger  to  which  an  unlimited 
occupation  of  the  executive  chair  would  expose  the 
republican  constitution  of  our  government,  made 
it  conscientiously  a  duty  to  retire  when  I  did,  the 
fear  of  becoming  a  dotard  and  of  being  insensible 
of  it,  would  of  itself  have  resisted  all  solicitations  to 
remain.  I  have  had  a  long  attack  of  rheumatism, 
without  fever  and  without  pain  while  I  keep  myself 
still.  A  total  prostration  of  the  muscles  of  the 
back,  hips'  and  thighs,  deprived  me  of  the  power  of 
walking,  and  leaves  it  still  in  a  very  impaired  state. 
A  pain  when  I  walk,  seems  to  have  fixed  itself  in 
the  hip,  and  to  threaten  permanence.  I  take  moder- 
ate rides,  without  much  fatigue;  but  my  journey 
to  this  place,  in  a  hard-going  gig,  gave  me  great 
sufferings  which  I  expect  will  be  renewed  on  my 
return  as  soon  as  I  am  able.  The  loss  of  the  power 
of  taking  exercise  would  be  a  sore  affliction  to  me. 
It  has  been  the  delight  of  my  retirement  to  be  in 
constant  bodily  activity,  looking  after  my  affairs. 
It  was  never  damped  as  the  pleasures  of  reading 
are,  by  the  question  of  cut  bono?  for  what  object? 
I  hope  your  health  of  body  continues  firm.  Your 
works  show  that  of  your  mind.  The  habits  of  exer- 
cise which  your  calling  has  given  to  both,  will  tend 
long  to  preserve  them.  The  sedentary  character 
of  my  public  occupations  sapped  a  constitution 
naturally  sound  and  vigorous,  and  draws  it  to  an 
earlier  close,    But  it  will  still  last  quite  as  long 


Correspondence  77 

as  I  wish  it.  There  is  a  fulness  of  time  when  men 
should  go,  and  not  occupy  too  long  the  ground  to 
which  others  have  a  right  to  advance.  We  must 
continue  while  here  to  exchange  occasionally  our 
mutual  good  wishes.  I  find  friendship  to  be  like 
wine,  raw  when  new,  ripened  with  age,  the  true  old 
man's  milk  and  restorative  cordial.  God  bless 
you  and  preserve  you  through  a  long  and  healthy 
old  age. 


TO    WILLIAM    A.    BURWELL. 

Poplar  Forest,  August  19,  181 1. 
Dear  Sir, — I  am  here  after  a  long  absence,  having 
been  confined  at  home  a  month  by  rheumatism.  I 
thought  myself  equal  to  the  journey  when  I  set  out, 
but  I  have  suffered  much  coming,  staying,  and 
shall,  returning.  If  I  am  not  better  after  a  little 
rest  at  home,  I  shall  set  out  for  the  warm  springs. 
The  object  of  this  letter  is  to  inform  Mrs.  Burwell 
that  a  ring,  which  she  left  where  she  washed,  the 
morning  of  leaving  Fludd's,  is  safe  and  will  be 
delivered  to  her  order  or  to  herself  when  she  passes. 
I  have  not  seen  the  President  since  he  came  home, 
nor  do  I  know  what  has  passed  with  Foster  from 
the  fountain  head;  but  through  a  channel  in  which 
I  have  confidence,  I  learn  he  has  delivered  a  formal 
note  in  the  name  of  his  government,  declaring  that 
the  circumstances  of  the  war  oblige  them  to  take 
possession  of  the  ocean,  and  permit  no  commerce  on 


78  Jefferson's  Works 

it  but  through  their  ports.  Thus  their  purpose  is 
at  length  avowed.  They  cannot  from  their  own 
resources  maintain  the  navy  necessary  to  retain  the 
dominion  of  the  ocean,  and  mean  that  other  nations 
shall  be  assessed  to  maintain  their  own  chains. 
Should  the  king  die,  as  is  probable,  although  the 
ministry  which  would  come  in  stand  so  committed 
to  repeal  the  orders  of  council,  I  doubt  if  the  nation 
will  permit  it.  For  the  usurpation  of  the  sea  has 
become  a  national  disease.  This  state  of  things  anni- 
hilates the  culture  of  tobacco,  except  of  about  15,000 
hogsheads  on  the  prime  lands.  Wheat  and  flour 
keep  up.  Wheat  was  at  gs.  6d.  at  Richmond  ten 
days  ago.  I  have  sold  mine  here  at  the  Richmond 
price,  abating  25.,  but  8s.  a,  bushel  has  been  offered 
for  machined  wheat.  Present  me  respectfully  to 
Mrs.  Burwell,  and  accept  assurances  of  affectionate 
respect  and  esteem. 


TO    CHARLES    W.    PEALE. 

Poplar  Forest,  August  20,  181 1. 
It  is  long,  my  dear  Sir,  since  we  have  exchanged 
a  letter.  Our  former  correspondence  had  always 
some  little  matter  of  business  interspersed;  but 
this  being  at  an  end,  I  shall  still  be  anxious  to  hear 
from  you  sometimes,  and  to  know  that  you  are  well 
and  happy.  I  know  indeed  that  your  system  is 
that  of  contentment  under  any  situation.  I  have 
heard  that  you  have  retired  from  the  city  to  a  farm, 


Correspondence  79 

and  that  you  give  your  whole  time  to  that.     Does 
not  the  museum  suffer?     And  is  the  farm  as  inter- 
esting?    Here,  as  you  know,  we  are  all  farmers,  but 
not  in  a  pleasing  style.     We  have  so  little  labor  in 
proportion  to  our  land  that,  although  perhaps  we 
make  more  profit  from  the  same  labor,  we  cannot 
give  to  our  grounds  that  style  of  beauty  which  satis- 
fies the  eye  of  the  amateur.     Our  rotations  are  corn, 
wheat,  and  clover,  or  corn,  wheat,  clover  and  clover, 
or  wheat,  corn,  wheat,  clover  and  clover;   preceding 
the  clover  by  a  plastering.     But  some,  instead  of 
clover,  substitute  mere  rest,   and  all  are  slovenly 
enough.     We  are  adding  the  care  of  Merino  sheep. 
I  have  often  thought  that  if  heaven  had  given  me 
choice  of  my  position  and  calling,  it  should  have 
been  on  a  rich  spot  of  earth,  well  watered,  and  near 
a  good  market  for  the  productions  of  the  garden. 
No  occupation  is  so  delightful  to  me  as  the  culture 
of  the  earth,  and  no  culture  comparable  to  that  of 
the  garden.     Such  a  variety  of  subjects,  some  one 
always  coming  to  perfection,  the  failure  of  one  thing 
repaired  by  the  success  of  another,  and  instead  of 
one   harvest   a   continued   one   through   the   year. 
Under  a  total  want  of  demand  except  for  our  family 
table,  I  am  still  devoted  to  the  garden.     But  though 
an  old  man,  I  am  but  a  young  gardener. 

Your  application  to  whatever  you  are  engaged  in 
I  know  to  be  incessant.  But  Sundays  and  rainy 
days  are  always  days  of  writing  for  the  farmer. 
Think  of  me  sometimes  when  you  have  your  pen  in 


80  Jefferson's  Works 

hand,  and  give  me  information  of  your  health  and 
occupations;  and  be  always  assured  of  my  great 
esteem  and  respect. 


TO    CHARLES    CLAY. 

Poplar  Forest,  August  23,  181 1. 

Dear  Sir, — While  here,  and  much  confined  to 
the  house  by  my  rheumatism,  I  have  amused  myself 
with  calculating  the  hour  lines  of  an  horizontal  dial 
for  the  latitude  of  this  place,  which  I  find  to  be  370 
22'  26".  The  calculations  are  for  every  five  minutes 
of  time,  and  are  always  exact  to  within  less  than 
half  a  second  of  a  degree.  As  I  do  not  know  that 
anybody  here  has  taken  this  trouble  before,  I  have 
supposed  a  copy  would  be  acceptable  to  you.  It 
may  be  a  good  exercise  for  Master  Cyrus  to  make 
you  a  dial  by  them.  He  will  need  nothing  but  a 
protractor,  or  a  line  of  chords  and  dividers.  A 
dial  of  size,  say  of  from  twelve  inches  to  two  feet 
square,  is  the  cheapest  and  most  accurate  measure 
of  time  for  general  use,  and  would  I  suppose  be 
more  common  if  every  one  possessed  the  proper 
horary  lines  for  his  own  latitude.  Williamsburg 
being  very  nearly  in  the  parallel  of  Poplar  Forest, 
the  calculations  now  sent  would  serve  for  all  the 
counties  in  the  line  between  that  place  and  this,  for 
your  own  place,  New  London,  and  Lynchburg  in 
this  neighborhood.  Slate,  as  being  less  affected  by 
the  sun,  is  preferable  to  wood  or  metal,  and  needs 


Correspondence  81 

but  a  saw  and  plane  to  prepare  it,  and  a  knife  point 
to  mark  the  lines  and  figures.  If  worth  the  trouble, 
you  will,  of  course,  use  the  paper  enclosed;  if  not, 
some  of  your  neighbors  may  wish  to  do  it,  and  the 
effort  to  be  of  some  use  to  you  will  strengthen  the 
assurances  of  my  great  esteem  and  respect. 


TO    LEVI    LINCOLN. 
MONTICELLO,    AugUSt    25,    l8ll. 

It  is  long,  my  good  friend,  since  we  have  exchanged 
a  letter ;  and  yet  I  demur  to  all  prescription  against 
it.  I  cannot  relinquish  the  right  of  correspondence 
with  those  I  have  learnt  to  esteem.  If  the  exten- 
sion of  common  acquaintance  in  public  life  be  an 
inconvenience,  that  with  select  worth  is  more  than 
a  counterpoise.  Be  assured  your  place  is  high 
among  those  whose  remembrance  I  have  brought 
with  me  into  retirement,  and  cherish  with  warmth. 
I  was  overjoyed  when  I  heard  you  were  appointed 
to  the  supreme  bench  of  national  justice,  and  as 
much  mortified  when  I  heard  you  had  declined  it. 
You  are  too  young  to  be  entitled  to  withdraw  your 
services  from  your  country.  You  cannot  yet  num- 
ber the  quadraginta  stipendia  of  the  veteran.  Our 
friends,  whom  we  left  behind,  have  ceased  to  be 
friends  among  themselves.  I  am  sorry  for  it,  on 
their  account  and  on  my  own,  for  I  have  sincere 
affection  for  them  all.  I  hope  it  will  produce  no 
schisms  among  us,  no  desertions  from  our  ranks; 

VOL.  XIII — 6 


82  Jefferson's  Works 

that  no  Essex  man  will  find  matter  of  triumph  in  it. 
The  secret  treasons  of  his  heart,  and  open  rebellions 
on  his  tongue,  will  still  be  punished,  while  in  fieri, 
by  the  detestation  of  his  country,  and  by  its  venge- 
ance in  the  overt  act.  What  a  pity  that  history 
furnishes  so  many  abuses  of  the  punishment  by 
exile,  the  most  rational  of  all  punishments  for 
meditated  treason!  Their  great  king  beyond  the 
water  would  doubtless  receive  them  as  kindly  as 
his  Asiatic  prototype  did  the  fugitive  aristocracy 
of  Greece.  But  let  us  turn  to  good-humored  things. 
How  do  you  do?  What  are  you  doing?  Does  the 
farm  or  the  study  occupy  your  time,  or  each  by 
turns?  Do  you  read  law  or  divinity?  And  which 
affords  the  most  curious  and  cunning  learning? 
Which  is  most  disinterested?  And  which  was  it 
that  crucified  its  Saviour?  Or  were  the  two  pro- 
fessions united  among  the  Jews?  In  that  case, 
what  must  their  Caiaphases  have  been?  Answer 
me  these  questions,  or  any  others  you  like  better, 
but  let  me  hear  from  you  and  know  that  you  are  well 
and  happy.  That  you  may  long  continue  so  is  the 
prayer  of  yours  affectionately. 


TO    JAMES    L.    EDWARDS. 

Monticello,  September  5,   181 1. 
Sir, — Your  letter  of  August   20th  has  truly  sur- 
prised   me.     In    that    it    is    said    that,    for  •  certain 
services   performed   by    Mr.    James   Lyon    and    Mr. 


Correspondence  83 

Samuel  Morse,  formerly  editors  of  the  Savannah 
Republican,  I  promised  them  the  sum  of  one  thou- 
sand dollars.  This,  Sir,  is  totally  unfounded.  I 
never  promised  to  any  printer  on  earth  the  sum  of 
one  thousand  dollars,  nor  any  other  sum,  for  certain 
services  performed,  or  for  any  services  which  that 
expression  would  imply.  I  have  had  no  accounts 
with  printers  but  for  their  newspapers,  for  which 
I  have  paid  always  the  ordinary  price  and  no  more. 
I  have  occasionally  joined  in  moderate  contribu- 
tions to  printers,  as  I  have  done  to  other  descrip- 
tions of  persons,  distressed  or  persecuted,  not  by 
promise,  but  the  actual  payment  of  what  I  con- 
tributed. When  Mr.  Morse  went  to  Savannah,  he 
called  on  me  and  told  me  he  meant  to  publish  a 
paper  there,  for  which  I  subscribed,  and  paid  him 
the  year  in  advance.  I  continued  to  take  it  from 
his  successors,  Everett  &  McLean,  and  Everett  & 
Evans,  and  paid  for  it  at  different  epochs  up  to 
December  31,  1808,  when  I  withdrew  my  subscrip- 
tion. You  say  McLean  informed  you  "he  had 
some  expectation  of  getting  the  money,  as  he  had 
received  a  letter  from  me  on  the  subject."  If  such 
a  letter  exists  under  my  name,  it  is  a  forgery.  I 
never  wrote  but  a  single  letter  to  him;  that  was  of 
the  28th  of  January,  1810,  and  was  on  the  subject 
of  the  last  payment  made  for  his  newspaper,  and 
on  no  other  subject;  and  I  have  two  receipts  of 
his,  (the  last  dated  March  9,  1809,)  of  payments  for 
his  paper,  both  stating  to  be  in  full  of  all  demands. 


84  Jefferson's  Works 

and  a  letter  of  the  17th  of  April,  18 10,  in  reply  to 
mine,  manifestly  showing  he  had  no  demand  against 
me  of  any  other  nature.  The  promise  is  said  to 
have  been  made  to  Morse  &  Lyon.  Were  Mr.  Morse 
living,  I  should  appeal  to  him  with  confidence,  as  I 
believe  him  to  have  been  a  very  honest  man.  Mr. 
Lyon  I  suppose  to  be  living,  and  will,  I  am  sure, 
acquit  me  of  any  such  transaction  as  that  alleged. 
The  truth,  then,  being  that  I  never  made  the  promise 
suggested,  nor  any  one  of  a  like  nature  to  any  printer 
or  other  person  whatever,  every  principle  of  justice 
and  of  self-respect  requires  that  I  should  not  listen 
to  any  such  demand. 


TO    JAMES    LYON. 

Monticello,  September  5,   181 1. 

Sir, — I  enclose  you  the  copy  of  a  letter  I  have 
received  from  a  James  L.  Edwards,  of  Boston.  You 
will  perceive  at  once  its  swindling  object.  It  appeals 
to  two  dead  men,  and  one,  (yourself,)  whom  he 
supposes  I  cannot  get  at.  I  have  written  him  an 
answer  which  may  perhaps  prevent  his  persevering 
in  the  attempt,  for  the  whole  face  of  his  letter  betrays 
a  consciousness  of  its  guilt.  But  perhaps  he  may 
expect  that  I  would  sacrifice  a  sum  of  money  rather 
than  be  disturbed  with  encountering  a  bold  falsehood. 
In  this  he  is  mistaken ;  and  to  prepare  to  meet  him, 
should  he  repeat  his  demand,  and  considering  that 
he  has  presumed  to  implicate  your  name  in  this 


Correspondence  85 

attempt,  I  take  the  liberty  of  requesting  a  letter 
from  you  bearing  testimony  to  the  truth  of  my 
never  having  made  to  you,  or  within  your  knowledge 
or  information,  any  such  promise  to  yourself,  your 
partner  Morse,  or  any  other.  My  confidence  in  your 
character  leaves  me  without  a  doubt  of  your  honest 
aid  in  repelling  this  base  and  bold  attempt  to  fix  on 
me  practices  to  which  no  honors  or  powers  in  this 
world  would  ever  have  induced  me  to  stoop.  I  have 
solicited  none,  intrigued  for  none.  Those  which  my 
country  has  thought  proper  to  confide  to  me  have 
been  of  their  own  mere  motion,  unasked  by  me. 
Such  practices  as  this  letter- writer  imputes  to  me, 
would  have  proved  me  unworthy  of  their  confidence. 
It  is  long  since  I  have  known  anything  of  your 
situation  or  pursuits.  I  hope  they  have  been  suc- 
cessful, and  tender  you  my  best  wishes  that  they 
may  continue  so,  and  for  your  own  health  and 
happiness. 


TO    DR.    ROBERT    PATTERSON. 

Monticello,  September  11,  181 1. 
Dear  Sir, — The  enclosed  work  came  to  me  with- 
out a  scrip  of  a  pen  other  than  what  you  see  in  the 
title-page — "  A  Monsieur  le  President  de  la  Societe." 
From  this  I  conclude  it  intended  for  the  Philo- 
sophical Society,  and  for  them  I  now  enclose  it  to 
you.  You  will  find  the  notes  really  of  value.  They 
embody  and  ascertain  to  us  all  the  scraps  of  new 


86  Jefferson's  Works 

discoveries  which  we  have  learned  in  detached 
articles  from  less  authentic  publications.  M.  Gudin 
has  generally  expressed  his  measures  according 
to  the  old  as  well  as  the  new  standard,  which  is  a 
convenience  to  me,  as  I  do  not  make  a  point  of 
5  etaining  the  last  in  my  memory.  I  confess,  indeed, 
4L  do  not  like  the  new  system  of  French  measures, 
because  not  the  best,  and  adapted  to  a  standard 
accessible  to  themselves  exclusively,  and  to  be 
obtained  by  other  nations  only  from  them.  For, 
on  examining  the  map  of  the  earth,  you  will  find 
no  meridian  on  it  but  the  one  passing  through  their 
country,  offering  the  extent  of  land  on  both  sides 
of  the  45th  degree,  and  terminating  at  both  ends 
in  a  portion  of  the  ocean  which  the  conditions  of 
the  problem  for  an  universal  standard  of  measures 
require.  Were  all  nations  to  agree  therefore  to 
adopt  this  standard,  they  must  go  to  Paris  to  ask 
it;  and  they  might  as  well  long  ago  have  all  agreed 
to  adopt  the  French  foot,  the  standard  of  which 
they  could  equally  have  obtained  from  Paris. 
Whereas  the  pendulum  is  equally  fixed  by  the  laws 
of  nature,  is  in  possession  of  every  nation,  may  be 
verified  everywhere  and  by  every  person,  and  at  an 
expense  within  every  one's  means.  I  am  not  there- 
fore without  a  hope  that  the  other  nations  of  the 
world  will  still  concur,  some  day,  in  making  the 
pendulum  the  basis  of  a  common  system  of  meas- 
ures, weights  and  coins,  which  applied  to  the  present 
metrical  systems  of  France  and  of  other  countries, 


Correspondence  87 

will  render  them  all  intelligible  to  one  another. 
England  and  this  country  may  give  it  a  beginning, 
notwithstanding  the  war  they  are  entering  into. 
The  republic  of  letters  is  unaffected  by  the  wars 
of  geographical  divisions  of  the  earth.  France,  by 
her  power  and  science,  now  bears  down  everything. 
But  that  power  has  its  measure  in  time  by  the  life 
of  one  man.  The  day  cannot  be  distant  in  the 
history  of  human  revolutions,  when  the  indignation 
of  mankind  will  burst  forth,  and  an  insurrection 
of  the  universe  against  the  political  tyranny  of 
France  will  overwhelm  all  her  arrogations.  What- 
ever is  most  opposite  to  them  will  be  most  popular, 
and  what  is  reasonable  therefore  in  itself,  cannot 
fail  to  be  adopted  the  sooner  from  that  motive. 
But  why  leave  this  adoption  to  the  tardy  will  of 
governments  who  are  always,  in  their  stock  of 
information,  a  century  or  two  behind  the  intelligent 
part  of  mankind,  and  who  have  interests  against 
touching  ancient  institutions?  Why  should  not 
the  college  of  the  literary  societies  of  the  world 
adopt  the  second  pendulum  as  the  unit  of  measure 
on  the  authorities  of  reason,  convenience  and  com- 
mon consent?  And  why  should  not  our  society 
open  the  proposition  by  a  circular  letter  to  the 
other  learned  institutions  of  the  earth?  If  men  of 
science,  in  their  publications,  would  express  meas- 
ures always  in  multiples  and  decimals  of  the  pendu- 
lum, annexing  their  value  in  municipal  measures 
as  botanists  add  the  popular  to  the  botanical  names 


38  Jefferson's  Works 

of  plants,  they  would  soon  become  familiar  to  all 
men  of  instruction,  and  prepare  the  way  for  legal 
adoptions.  At  any  rate,  it  would  render  the  writers 
of  every  nation  intelligible  to  the  readers  of  every 
other,  when  expressing  the  measures  of  things. 
The  French,  I  believe,  have  given  up  their  Decada 
Calendar,  but  it  does  not  appear  that  they  retire 
from  the  centesimal  division  of  the  quadrant.  On 
the  contrary,  M.  Borda  has  calculated  according 
to  that  division,  new  trigonometrical  tables  not 
yet,  I  believe,  printed.  In  the  excellent  tables  of 
Callet,  lately  published  by  Didot,  in  stereotype, 
he  has  given  a  table  of  logarithmic  lines  and  tan- 
gents for  the  hundred  degrees  of  the  quadrant, 
abridged  from  Borda 's  manuscript.  But  he  has 
given  others  for  the  sexagesimal  division,  which 
being  for  every  10"  through  the  whole  table,  are 
more  convenient  than  Hutton's,  Scherwin's,  or  any 
of  their  predecessors.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the 
centesimal  division  would  facilitate  our  arithmetic, 
and  that  it  might  have  been  preferable  had  it  been 
originally  adopted,  as  a  numeration  by  eights  would 
have  been  more  convenient  than  by  tens.  But  the 
advantages  would  not  now  compensate  the  embar- 
rassments of  a  change. 

I  extremely  regret  the  not  being  provided  with  a 
time-piece  equal  to  the  observations  of  the  approach- 
ing eclipse  of  the  sun.  Can  you  tell  me  what  would 
be  the  cost  in  Philadelphia  of  a  clock,  the  time- 
keeping  part   of   which   should   be   perfect?    And 


Correspondence  89 

what  the  difference  of  cost  between  a  wooden  and 
gridiron  pendulum?  To  be  of  course  without  a 
striking  apparatus,  as  it  would  be  wanted  for  astro- 
nomical purposes  only.  Accept  assurances  of  affec- 
tionate esteem  and  respect. 


TO    CLEMENT    CAINE. 

Monticello,  September  16,  181 1. 

Sir, — Your  favor  of  April  2d  was  not  received  till 
the  23d  of  June  last,  with  the  volume  accompanying 
it,  for  which  be  pleased  to  accept  my  thanks.  I 
have  read  it  with  great  satisfaction,  and  received 
from  it  information,  the  more  acceptable  as  coming 
from  a  source  which  could  be  relied  on.  The  retort 
on  European  censors,  of  their  own  practices  on  the 
liberties  of  man,  the  inculcation  on  the  master  of 
the  moral  duties  which  he  owes  to  the  slave,  in 
return  for  the  benefits  of  his  service,  that  is  to  say, 
of  food,  clothing,  care  in  sickness,  and  maintenance 
under  age  and  disability,  so  as  to  make  him  in  fact 
as  comfortable  and  more  secure  than  the  laboring 
man  in  most  parts  of  the  world ;  and  the  idea  sug- 
gested of  substituting  free  whites  in  all  household 
occupations  and  manual  arts,  thus  lessening  the 
call  for  the  other  kind  of  labor,  while  it  would 
increase  the  public  security,  give  great  merit  to 
the  work,  and  will,  I  have  no  doubt,  produce  whole- 
some  impressions.     The  habitual  violation  of  the 


9°  Jefferson's  Works 

equal  rights  of  the  colonist  by  the  dominant  (for  I 
will  not  call  them  the  mother)  countries  of  Europe, 
the  invariable  sacrifice  of  their  highest  interests  to 
the  minor  advantages  of  any  individual   trade  or 
calling  at  home,  are  as  immoral  in  principle  as  the 
continuance  of  them  is  unwise  in  practice,  after  the 
lessons  they  have  received.     What,  in  short,  is  the 
whole  system  of  Europe  towards  America  but  an 
atrocious  and  insulting  tyranny?     One  hemisphere 
of  the  earth,  separated  from  the  other  by  wide  seas 
on  both  sides,  having  a  different  system  of  interests 
flowing  from  different  climates,  different  soils,  differ- 
ent productions,  different  modes  of  existence,  and 
its  own  local  relations  and  duties,  is  made  subser- 
vient to  all  the  petty  interests  of  the  other,  to  their 
laws,  their  regulations,  their  passions  and  wars,  and 
interdicted  from  social  intercourse,  from  the  inter- 
change of  mutual   duties  and  comforts  with  their 
neighbors,  enjoined  on  all  men  by  the  laws  of  nature. 
Happily  these  abuses  of  human  rights  are  drawing 
to  a  close  on  both  our  continents,  and  are  not  likely 
to  survive  the  present  mad  contest  of  the  lions  and 
tigers  of  the  other.     Nor  does  it  seem  certain  that 
the  insular  colonies  will  not  soon  have  to  take  care 
of  themselves,  and  to  enter  into  the  general  system 
of   independence    and   free    intercourse   with   their 
neighboring    and    natural    friends.      The    acknowl- 
edged depreciation  of  the  paper  circulation  of  Eng- 
land, with  the  known  laws  of  its  rapid  progression 
to  bankruptcy,  will  leave  that  nation  shortly  with- 


Correspondence  91 

out  revenue,  and  without  the  means  of  supporting 
the  naval  power  necessary  to  maintain  dominion 
over  the  rights  and  interests  of  different  nations. 
The  intention  too,  which  they  now  formally  avow, 
of  taking  possession  of  the  ocean  as  their  exclusive 
domain,  and  of  suffering  no  commerce  on  it  but 
through  their  ports,  makes  it  the  interest  of  all 
mankind  to  contribute  their  efforts  to  bring  such 
usurpations  to  an  end.  We  have  hitherto  been 
able  to  avoid  professed  war,  and  to  continue  to  our 
industry  a  more  salutary  direction.  But  the  deter- 
mination to  take  all  our  vessels  bound  to  any  other 
than  her  ports,  amounting  to  all  the  war  she  can  make 
(for  we  fear  no  invasion),  it  would  be  folly  in  us  to 
let  that  war  be  all  on  one  side  only,  and  to  make 
no  effort  towards  indemnification  and  retaliation  by 
reprisal.  That  a  contest  thus  forced  on  us  by  a 
nation  a  thousand  leagues  from  us  both,  should 
place  your  country  and  mine  in  relations  of  hostility, 
who  have  not  a  single  motive  or  interest  but  of 
mutual  friendship  and  interchange  of  comforts, 
shows  the  monstrous  character  of  the  system  under 
which  we  live.  But  however,  in  the  event  of  war, 
greedy  individuals  on  both  sides,  availing  them- 
selves of  its  laws,  may  commit  depredations  on 
each  other,  I  trust  that  our  quiet  inhabitants,  con- 
scious that  no  cause  exists  but  for  neighborly  good 
will,  and  the  furtherance  of  common  interests, 
will  feel  only  those  brotherly  affections  which  nature 
has  ordained  to  be  those  of  our  situation. 


9*  Jefferson's  Works 

A  letter  of  thanks  for  a  good  book  has  thus  run 
away  from  its  subject  into  fields  of  speculation  into 
which  discretion  perhaps  should  have  forbidden 
me  to  enter,  and  for  which  an  apology  is  due.  I 
trust  that  the  reflections  I  hazard  will  be  considered 
as  no  more  than  what  they  really  are,  those  of  a 
private  individual,  withdrawn  from  the  councils 
of  his  country,  uncommunicating  with  them,  and 
responsible  alone  for  any  errors  of  fact  or  opinion 
expressed;  as  the  reveries,  in  short,  of  an  old  man, 
who,  looking  beyond  the  present  day,  looks  into 
times  not  his  own,  and  as  evidences  of  confidence 
in  the  liberal  mind  of  the  person  to  whom  they  are 
so  freely  addressed.  Permit  me,  however,  to  add 
to  them  my  best  wishes  for  his  personal  happiness, 
and  assurances  of  the  highest  consideration  and 
respect. 


TO    JOHN    W.    EPPES. 

Monticello,  September  29,   181 1. 

Dear  Sir, — The  enclosed  letter  came  under  cover 
to  me  without  any  indication  from  what  quarter 
it  came. 

Our  latest  arrival  brings  information  of  the  death 
of  the  king  of  England.  Its  coming  from  Ireland 
and  not  direct  from  England  would  make  it  little 
worthy  of  notice,  were  not  the  event  so  probable. 
On  the  26th  of  July  the  English  papers  say  he  was 
expected  hourly  to  expire.     This  vessel  sailed  from 


Correspondence  93 

Ireland  the  4th  of  August,  and  says  an  express 
brought  notice  the  day  before  to  the  government 
that  he  died  on  the  1st;  but  whether  on  that  day 
or  not,  we  may  be  certain  he  is  dead,  and  entertain, 
therefore,  a  hope  that  a  change  of  ministers  will 
produce  that  revocation  of  the  orders  of  council 
for  which  they  stand  so  committed.  In  this  event 
we  may  still  remain  at  peace,  and  that  probably 
concluded  between  the  other  powers.  I  am  so  far, 
in  that  case,  from  believing  that  our  reputation  will 
be  tarnished  by  our  not  having  mixed  in  the  mad 
contests  of  the  rest  of  the  world  that,  setting  aside 
the  ravings  of  pepper-pot  politicians,  of  whom  there 
are  enough  in  every  age  and  country,  I  believe  it 
will  place  us  high  in  the  scale  of  wisdom,  to  have 
preserved  our  country  tranquil  and  prosperous 
during  a  contest  which  prostrated  the  honor,  power, 
independence,  laws  and  property  of  every  country 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Which  of  them 
have  better  preserved  their  honor?  Has  Spain, 
has  Portugal,  Italy,  Switzerland,  Holland,  Prussia, 
Austria,  the  other  German  powers  Sweden,  Den- 
mark, or  even  Russia?  And  would  we  accept  of 
the  infamy  of  France  or  England  in  exchange  for  our 
honest  reputation,  or  of  the  result  of  their  enormities, 
despotism  to  the  one,  and  bankruptcy  and  prostra- 
tion to  the  other,  in  exchange  for  the  prosperity,  the 
freedom  and  independence  which  we  have  preserved 
safely  through  the  wreck?  The  bottom  of  my 
page  warns  me  it  is  time  to  present  my  homage  to 


94  Jefferson's  Works 

Mrs.  Eppes,  and  to  yourself  and  Francis  my  affec- 
tionate adieux. 


TO    PAINE    TODD. 

Monticello,  October  10,  1811. 
Dear  Sir, — According  to  promise  I  send  you 
our  observations  of  the  solar  eclipse  of  September 
17th.  We  had,  you  know,  a  perfect  observation 
of  the  passage  of  the  sun  over  the  meridian,  and  the 
eclipse  began  so  soon  after  as  to  leave  little  room 
for  error  from  the  time-piece.  Her  rate  of  going, 
however,  was  ascertained  by  ten  days'  subsequent 
observation  and  comparison  with  the  sun,  and  the 
times,  as  I  now  give  them  to  you,  are  corrected  by 
these.  I  have  no  confidence  in  the  times  of  the 
first  and  ultimate  contacts,  because  you  know  we 
were  not  early  enough  on  the  watch,  deceived  by 
our  time-piece  which  was  too  slow.  The  impression 
on  the  sun  was  too  sensible  when  we  first  observed 
it,  to  be  considered  as  the  moment  of  commence- 
ment, and  the  largeness  of  our  conjectural  correction 
(18")  shows  that  that  part  of  the  observation  should 
be  considered  as  nothing.  The  last  contact  was 
well  enough  observed,  but  it  is  on  the  forming  and 
breaking  of  the  annulus  that  I  rely  with  entire 
confidence.  I  am  certain  there  was  not  an  error 
of  an  instant  of  time  in  either.  I  would  be  governed, 
therefore,  solely  by  them,  and  not  suffer  their  result 
to    be    affected    by  the  others.     I    have    not    yet 


Correspondence  9  5 

entered  on  the  calculation  of  our  longitude  from 
them.  They  will  enable  you  to  do  it  as  a  college 
exercise.     Affectionately  yours. 

First  contact,  oh.  13'  54" 

Annulus  formed,  ih.  53'  o"  1     central  time  of  annulus,     ")     central  time  of  the  two 

Annulus  broken,  ih.  59'  25"  J  ih.  56'  12V  j        contacts,  ih.  51'  28'" 

Ultimate  contact,  3I1.  29'  2" 

Latitude  of  Monticello,  380  8' 


TO    DR.    ROBERT    PATTERSON. 

Monticello,  November  10,  1811. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  September  23d  came 
to  hand  in  due  time,  and  I  thank  you  for  the  nautical 
almanac  it  covered  for  the  year  18 13.  I  learn  with 
pleasure  that  the  Philosophical  Society  has  con- 
cluded to  take  into  consideration  the  subject  of  a 
fixed  standard  of  measures,  weights  and  coins,  and 
you  ask  my  ideas  on  it;  insulated  as  my  situation 
is,  I  am  sure  I  can  offer  nothing  but  what  will  occur 
to  the  committee  engaged  on  it,  with  the  advantage 
on  their  part  of  correction  by  an  interchange  of 
sentiments  and  observations  among  themselves.  I 
will,  however,  hazard  some  general  ideas  because 
you  desire  it,  and  if  a  single  one  be  useful,  the  labor 
will  not  be  lost. 

The  subject  to  be  referred  to  as  a  standard,  whether 
it  be  matter  or  motion,  should  be  fixed  by  nature, 
invariable  and  accessible  to  all  nations,  independ- 
ently of  others,  and  with  a  convenience  not  dispro- 
portioned  to  its  utility.  What  subject  in  nature 
fulfils  best  these  conditions?     What   system  shall 


96  Jefferson  V  Works 

we  propose  on  this,  embracing  measures,  weights 
and  coins?  and  in  what  form  shall  we  present  it  to 
the  world?  These  are  the  questions  before  the 
committee. 

Some  other  subjects  have,  at  different  times,  been 
proposed  as  standards,  but  two  only  have  divided 
the  opinions  of  men:  first,  a  direct  admeasurement 
of  a  line  on  the  earth's  surface,  or  second,  a  measure 
derived  from  its  motion  on  its  axis.  To  measure 
directly  such  a  portion  of  the  earth  as  would  furnish 
an  element  of  measure,  which  might  be  found  again 
with  certainty  in  all  future  times,  would  be  too  far 
beyond  the  competence  of  our  means  to  be  taken 
into  consideration.  I  am  free,  at  the  same  time, 
to  say  that  if  these  were  within  our  power  in  the 
most  ample  degree,  this  element  would  not  meet 
my  preference.  The  admeasurement  would  of  course 
be  of  a  portion  of  some  great  circle  of  the  earth.  If 
of  the  equator,  the  countries  over  which  that  passes, 
their  character  and  remoteness,  render  the  under- 
taking arduous,  and  we  may  say  impracticable  for 
most  nations.  If  of  some  meridian,  the  varying 
measures  of  its  degrees  from  the  equator  to  the  pole, 
require  a  mean  to  be  sought,  of  which  some  aliquot 
part  may  furnish  what  is  desired.  For  this  purpose 
the  45th  degree  has  been  recurred  to,  and  such  a 
length  of  line  on  both  sides  of  it  terminating  at  each 
end  in  the  ocean,  as  may  furnish  a  satisfactory  law 
for  a  deduction  of  the  unmeasured  part  of  the  quad- 
rant.    The  portion  resorted  to  by  the  French  philoso- 


Correspondence  97 

phers,   (and  there  is  no  other  on  the  globe  under 
circumstances  equally  satisfactory,)  is  the  meridian 
passing  through  their  country  and  a  portion  of  Spain, 
from  Dunkirk  to  Barcelona.     The  objections  to  such 
an  admeasur  ment  as  an  element  of  measure,  are 
the  labor,  the  time,  the  number  of  highly-qualified 
agents,  and  the  great  expense  required.     All  this, 
too,  is  to  be  repeated  whenever  any  accident  shall 
have   destroyed   the   standard  derived  from   it,    or 
impaired  its  dimensions.     This  portion  of  that  par- 
ticular meridian   is   accessible  of  right  to  no  one 
nation  on  earth.     France,  indeed,   availing  herself 
of  a  moment  of  peculiar  relation  between  Spain  and 
herself,  has  executed  such  an  admeasurement.     But 
how  would  it  be  at  this  moment,  as  to  either  France 
or  Spain?     and  how  is  it  at  all  times  as  to  other 
nations,    in   point   either  of   right  or   of  practice? 
Must  these  go  through  the  same  operation,  or  take 
their    measures    from    the    standard    prepared    by 
France?     Neither  case  bears  that  character  of  inde- 
pendence which  the  problem  requires,   and  which 
neither  the  equality  nor  convenience  of  nations  can 
dispense  with.     How  would  it  now  be,  were  England 
the  deposit  of  a  standard  for  the  world?     At  war 
with  all  the  world,  the  standard  would  be  inaccessible 
to   all  other  nations.     Against   this,    too,   are  the 
inaccuracies  of  admeasurements  over  hills  and  val- 
leys,   mountains    and    waters,    inaccuracies    often 
unobserved  by  the  agent  himself,  and  always  un- 
known to  the  world.     The  various  results  of  the 

VOL.  XIII — 7 


98  Jefferson's  Works 

different  measures  heretofore  attempted,  sufficiently 
prove  the  inadequacy  of  human  means  to  make  such 
an  admeasurement  with  the  exactness  requisite. 

Let  us  now  see  under  what  circumstances  the 
pendulum  offers  itself  as  an  element  of  measure. 
The  motion  of  the  earth  on  its  axis  from  noon  to 
noon  of  a  mean  solar  day,  has  been  divided  from 
time  immemorial,  and  by  very  general  consent,  into 
86,400  portions  of  time  called  seconds.  The  length 
of  a  pendulum  vibrating  in  one  of  those  portions, 
is  determined  by  the  laws  of  nature,  is  invariable 
under  the  same  parallel,  and  accessible  independ- 
ently to  all  men.  Like  a  degree  of  the  meridian, 
indeed,  it  varies  in  its  length  from  the  equator  to 
the  pole,  and  like  it,  too,  requires  to  be  reduced  to 
a  mean.  In  seeking  a  mean  in  the  first  case,  the 
45th  degree  occurs  with  unrivalled  preferences.  It 
is  the  mid- way  of  the  celestial  arc  from  the  equator 
to  the  pole.  It  is  a  mean  between  the  two  extreme 
degrees  of  the  terrestial  arc,  or  between  any  two 
equi-distant  from  it,  and  it  is  also  a  mean  value  of 
all  its  degrees.  In  like  manner,  when  seeking  a 
mean  for  the  pendulum,  the  same  45th  degree  offers 
itself  on  the  same  grounds,  its  increments  being 
governed  by  the  same  laws  which  determine  those 
of  the  different  degrees  of  the  meridian. 

In  a  pendulum  loaded  with  a  bob,  some  difficulty 
occurs  in  finding  the  centre  of  oscillation;  and  con- 
sequently the  distance  between  that  and  the  point 
of  suspension.     To  lessen  this,  it  has  been  proposed 


Correspondence  99 

to  substitute  for  the  pendulum,  a  cylindrical  rod  of 
small  diameter,  in  which  the  displacement  of  the 
centre  of  oscillation  would  be  lessened.  It  has  also 
been  proposed  to  prolong ,  the  suspending  wire  of 
the  pendulum  below  the  bob,  until  their  centres  of 
oscillation  shall  coincide.  But  these  propositions 
not  appearing  to  have  received  general  approbation, 
we  recur  to  the  pendulum,  suspended  and  charged 
as  has  been  usual.  And  the  rather  as  the  laws  which 
determine  the  centre  of  oscillation  leave  no  room 
for  error  in  finding  it,  other  than  that  minimum  in 
practice  to  which  all  operations  are  subject  in  their 
execution.  The  other  sources  of  inaccuracy  in  the 
length  of  the  pendulum  need  not  be  mentioned, 
because  easily  guarded  against.  But  the  great  and 
decisive  superiority  of  the  pendulum,  as  a  standard 
of  measure,  is  in  its  accessibility  to  all  men,  at  all 
times  and  in  all  places.  To  obtain  the  second  pendu- 
lum for  450  it  is  not  necessary  to  go  actually  to  that 
latitude.  Having  ascertained  its  length  in  our  own 
parallel,  both  theory  and  observation  give  us  a  law 
for  ascertaining  the  difference  between  that  and  the 
pendulum  of  any  other.  To  make  a  new  measure 
therefore,  or  verify  an  old  one,  nothing  is  necessary 
in  any  place  but  a  well-regulated  time-piece,  or  a 
good  meridian,  and  such  a  knowledge  of  the  subject 
as  is  common  in  all  civilized  nations. 

Those  indeed  who  have  preferred  the  other  element 
do  justice  to  the  certainty,  as  well  as  superior  facili- 
ties of  the  pendulum,  by  proposing  to  recur  to  one 


100  Jefferson's  Works 

of  the  length  of  their  standard,  and  to  ascertain  its 
number  of  vibrations  in  a  day.  These  being  once 
known,  if  any  accident  impair  their  standard  it  is  to 
be  recovered  by  means  of  a  pendulum  which  shall 
make  the  requisite  number  of  vibrations  in  a  day. 
And  among  the  several  commissions  established  by 
the  Academy  of  Sciences  for  the  execution  of  the 
several  branches  of  their  work  on  measures  and 
weights,  that  respecting  the  pendulum  was  assigned 
to  Messrs.  Borda,  Coulomb  and  Cassini,  the  result 
of  whose  labors,  however,  I  have  not  learned. 

Let  our  unit  of  measure  then  be  a  pendulum  of 
such  length  as  in  the  latitude  of  450,  in  the  level  of 
the  ocean,  and  in  a  given  temperature,  shall  perform 
its  vibrations,  in  small  and  equal  arcs,  in  one  second 
of    mean    time. 

What  ratio  shall  we  adopt  for  the  parts  and  multi- 
ples of  this  unit?  The  decimal  without  a  doubt. 
Our  arithmetic  being  founded  in  a  decimal  numer- 
ation, the  same  numeration  in  a  system  of  measures, 
weights  and  coins,  tallies  at  once  with  that.  On 
this  question,  I  believe,  there  has  been  no  difference 
of  opinion. 

In  measures  of  length,  then,  the  pendulum  is  our 
unit.  It  is  a  little  more  than  our  yard,  and  less 
than  the  ell.  Its  tenth  or  dime,  will  not  be  quite  .4 
inches.  Its  hundredth,  or  cent,  not  quite  .4  of  an 
inch;  its  thousandth,  or  mill,  not  quite  .04  of  an 
inch,  and  so  on.  The  traveller  will  count  his  road 
by  a  longer  measure,     1,000  units,  or  a  kiliad,  will 


Correspondence  101 

not  be  quite  two- thirds  of  our  present  mile,   and 
more  nearly  a  thousand  paces  than  that. 

For  measures  of  surface,  the  square  unit,  equal 
to  about  ten  square  feet,  or  one-ninth  more  than  a 
square  yard,  will  be  generally  convenient.  But  for 
those  of  lands  a  larger  measure  will  be  wanted.  A 
kiliad  would  be  not  quite  a  rood,  or  quarter  of  an 
acre;   a  myriad  not  quite  2^  acres. 

For  measures  of  capacity,  wet  and  dry, 
The  cubic  Unit  =  .1  would  be  about  .35  cubic  feet, 

.28  bushels  dry,  or  J  of  a  ton 
liquid. 
Dime  =  .1  would  be  about  3.5  cubic  feet, 
2.8  bushels,  or  about  J  of  a 
barrel  liquid. 
Cent  =.01  about  50  cubic  inches,  or  J  of 

a  quart. 
Mill  =  .001  =.5  of  a  cubic  inch  or  §  of 
a  gill. 
To  incorporate  into  the  same  system  our  weights 
and  coins,  we  must  recur  to  some  natural  substance, 
to  be  found  everywhere,  and  of  a  composition  suffi- 
ciently  uniform.     Water   has   been    considered    as 
the  most  eligible  substance,   and  rain-water  more 
nearly  uniform  than  any  other  kind  found  in  nature. 
That  circumstance  renders  it  preferable  to  distilled 
water,  and  its  variations  in  weight  may  be  called 
insensible. 

The  cubic  unit  of  this  s=  .1  would  weigh  about 
2,165  pounds  or  a  ton  between  the  long  and  short. 


102  Jefferson's  Works 

The  Dime  =  .1  alittlemorethan2kentals. 

Cent  =  .01  a  little  more  than  20  lb. 

Mill  =  .001  a  little  more  than  2  lb. 

Decimmil  =  .0001  about  3^  oz.  avoirdu- 

poise. 
Centimmil  =  .00001  a  little  more  than  6 

dwt. 
Millionth  =  .000001  about  15  grains. 

Decimmillionth   =  .0000001  about  1^  grains. 
Centimmillionth  =  .00000001    about   .14   of    a 

grain. 
Billionth  =  .000000001  about  .014  of  a 

grain. 
With  respect  to  our  coins,  the  pure  silver  in  a  dollar 
being  fixed  by  law  at  34 7 i  grains,  and  all  debts  and 
contracts  being  bottomed  on  that  value,  we  can  only 
state  the  pure  silver  in  the  dollar,  which  would  be 
very  nearly  23  millionths. 

I  have  used  loose  and  round  numbers  (the  exact 
unit  being  yet  undetermined)  merely  to  give  a 
general  idea  of  the  measures  and  weights  proposed, 
when  compared  with  those  we  now  use.  And  in 
the  names  of  the  subdivisions  I  have  followed  the 
metrology  of  the  ordinance  of  Congress  of  1786, 
which  for  their  series  below  unit  adopted  the  Roman 
numerals.  For  that  above  unit  the  Grecian  is  con- 
venient, and  has  been  adopted  in  the  new  French 
system. 

We  come  now  to  our  last  question,  in  what  form 
shall  we  offer  this  metrical  system  to  the  world  ?     In 


Correspondence  103 

some  one  which  shall  be  altogether  unassuming; 
which  shall  not  have  the  appearance  of  taking  the 
lead  among  our  sister  institutions  in  making  a  general 
proposition.  So  jealous  is  the  spirit  of  equality  in 
the  republic  of  letters,  that  the  smallest  excitement 
of  that  would  mar  our  views,  however  salutary  for 
all.  We  are  in  habits  of  correspondence  with  some 
of  these  institutions,  and  identity  of  character  and 
of  object,  authorize  our  entering  into  correspondence 
with  all.  Let  us  then  mature  our  system  as  far  as 
can  be  done  at  present,  by  ascertaining  the  length 
of  the  second  pendulum  of  4 50  by  forming  two  tables, 
one  of  which  shall  give  the  equivalent  of  every  differ- 
ent denomination  of  measures,  weights  and  coins  in 
these  States,  in  the  unit  of  that  pendulum,  its  deci- 
mals and  multiples;  and  the  other  stating  the 
equivalent  of  all  the  decimal  parts  and  multiples  of 
that  pendulum,  in  the  several  denominations  of 
measures,  weights  and  coins  of  our  existing  system. 
This  done,  we  might  communicate  to  one  or  more 
of  these  institutions  in  every  civilized  country  a  copy 
of  those  tables,  stating  as  our  motive,  the  difficulty 
we  had  experienced,,  and  often  the  impossibility  of 
ascertaining  the  value  of  the  measures,  weights  and 
coins  of  other  countries,  expressed  in  any  standard 
which  we  possess;  that  desirous  of  being  relieved 
from  this,  and  of  obtaining  information  which  could 
be  relied  on  for  the  purposes  of  science,  as  well  as  of 
business,  we  had  concluded  to  ask  it  from  the  learned 
societies  of  other  nations,  who  are  especially  quali- 


i°4  Jefferson's  Works 

fied  to  give  it  with  the  requisite  accuracy;  that  in 
making  this  request  we  had  thought  it  our  duty  first 
to  do  ourselves,  and  to  offer  to  others,  what  we  meant 
to  ask  from  them,  by  stating  the  value  of  our  own 
measures,  weights  and  coins,  in  some  unit  of  measure 
already  possessed,  or  easily  obtainable,  by  all  nations ; 
that  the  pendulum  vibrating  seconds  of  mean  time, 
presents  itself  as  such  an  unit;  its  length  being 
determined  by  the  laws  of  nature,  and  easily  ascer- 
tainable at  all  times  and  places;  that  we  have 
thought  that  of  450  would  be  the  most  unexception- 
able, as  being  a  mean  of  all  other  parallels,  and  open 
to  actual  trial  in  both  hemispheres.  In  this,  there- 
fore, as  an  unit,  and  in  its  parts  and  multiples  in  the 
decimal  ratio,  we  have  expressed,  in  the  tables 
communicated,  the  value  of  all  the  measures,  weights 
and  coins  used  in  the  United  States,  and  we  ask  in 
return  from  their  body  a  table  of  the  weights,  meas- 
ures and  coins  in  use  within  their  country,  expressed 
in  the  parts  and  multiples  of  the  same  unit.  Having 
requested  the  same  favor  from  the  learned  societies 
of  other  nations,  our  object  is,  with  their  assistance, 
to  place  within  the  reach  of  our  fellow  citizens  at 
large  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  measures,  weights 
and  coins  of  the  countries  with  which  they  have 
commercial  or  friendly  intercourse;  and  should  the 
societies  of  other  countries  interchange  their  respec- 
tive tables,  the  learned  will  be  in  possession  of  an 
uniform  language  in  measures,  weights  and  coins, 
which  may  with  time  become  useful  to  other  descrip- 


Correspondence  1 05 

tions  of  their  citizens,  and  even  to  their  governments. 
This,  however,  will  rest  with  their  pleasure,  not 
presuming,  in  the  present  proposition,  to  extend  our 
views  beyond  the  limits  of  our  own  nation.  I  offer 
this  sketch  merely  as  the  outline  of  the  kind  of  com- 
munication which  I  should  hope  would  excite  no 
jealousy  or  repugnance. 

Peculiar  circumstances,  however,  would  require 
letters  of  a  more  special  character  to  the  Institute 
of  France,  and  the  Royal  Society  of  England.  The 
magnificent  work  which  France  has  executed  in  the 
admeasurement  of  so  large  a  portion  of  the  meridian, 
has  a  claim  to  great  respect  in  our  reference  to  it. 
We  should  only  ask  a  communication  of  their 
metrical  system,  expressed  in  equivalent  values  of 
the  second  pendulum  of  450  as  ascertained  by  Messrs. 
Borda,  Coulomb  and  Cassini,  adding,  perhaps,  the 
request  of  an  actual  rod  of  the  length  of  that  pendu- 
lum. 

With  England,  our  explanations  will  be  much 
more  delicate.  They  are  the  older  country,  the 
mother  country,  more  advanced  in  the  arts  and 
sciences,  possessing  more  wealth  and  leisure  for 
their  improvement,  and  animated  by  a  pride  more 
than  laudable.1      It  is  their  measures,  too,  which 

1  We  are  all  occupied  in  industrious  pursuits.  They  abound  with 
persons  living  on  the  industry  of  their  fathers  or  on  the  earnings  of 
their  fellow  citizens,  given  away  by  their  rulers  in  sinecures  and  pen- 
sions. Some  of  these,  desirous  of  laudable  distinction,  devote  their 
time  and  means  to  the  pursuits  of  science,  and  become  profitable 
members  of  society  by  an  industry  of  a  higher  order. 


io6  Jefferson's  Works 

we  undertake  to  ascertain  and  communicate  to 
themselves.  The  subject  should  therefore  be  opened 
to  them  with  infinite  tenderness  and  respect,  and  in 
some  way  which  might  give  them  due  place  in  its 
agency.  The  parallel  of  450  being  within  our  lati- 
tude and  not  within  theirs,  the  actual  experiments 
under  that  would  be  of  course  assignable  to  us.  But 
as  a  corrective,  I  would  propose  that  they  should 
ascertain  the  length  of  the  pendulum  vibrating 
seconds  in  the  city  of  London,  or  at  the  observatory 
of  Greenwich,  while  we  should  do  the  same  in  an 
equidistant  parallel  to  the  south  of  450,  suppose  in 
380  29'.  We  might  ask  of  them,  too,  as  they  are  in 
possession  of  the  standards  of  Guildhall,  of  which 
we  can  have  but  an  unauthentic  account,  to  make 
the  actual  application  of  those  standards  to  the 
pendulum  when  ascertained.  The  operation  we 
should  undertake  under  the  45th  parallel,  (about 
Passamaquoddy,)  would  give  us  a  happy  occasion, 
too,  of  engaging  our  sister  society  of  Boston  in  our 
views,  by  referring  to  them  the  execution  of  that 
part  of  the  work.  For  that  of  3 8°  29'  we  should  be 
at  a  loss.  It  crosses  the  tide  waters  of  the  Potomac, 
about  Dumfries,  and  I  do  not  know  what  our 
resources  there  would  be  unless  we  borrow  them  from 
Washington,  where  there  are  competent  persons. 

Although  I  have  not  mentioned  Philadelphia  in 
these  operations,  I  by  no  means  propose  to  relin- 
quish the  benefit  of  observations  to  be  made  there. 
Her  science  and  perfection  in  the  arts  would  be  a 


Correspondence  107 

valuable  corrective  to  the  less  perfect  state  of  them 
in  the  other  places  of  observation.  Indeed,  it  is  to 
be  wished  that  Philadelphia  could  be  made  the  point 
of  observation  south  of  450,  and  that  the  Royal 
Society  would  undertake  the  counterpoint  on  the 
north,  which  would  be  somewhere  between  the 
Lizard  and  Falmouth.  The  actual  pendulums  from 
both  of  our  points  of  observation,  and  not  merely 
the  measures  of  them,  should  be  delivered  to  the 
Philosophical  Society,  to  be  measured  under  their 
eye  and  direction. 

As  this  is  really  a  work  of  common  and  equal 
interest  to  England  and  the  United  States,  perhaps 
it  would  be  still  more  respectful  to  make  our  propo- 
sition to  her  Royal  Society  in  the  outset,  and  to 
agree  with  them  on  a  partition  of  the  work.  In  this 
case,  any  commencement  of  actual  experiments  on 
our  part  should  be  provisional  only,  and  preparatory 
to  the  ultimate  results.  We  might,  in  the  meantime, 
provisionally  also,  form  a  table  adapted  to  the  length 
of  the  pendulum  of  450,  according  to  the  most 
approved  estimates,  including  those  of  the  French 
commissioners.  This  would  serve  to  introduce  the 
subject  to  the  foreign  societies,  in  the  way  before 
proposed,  reserving  to  ourselves  the  charge  of  com- 
municating to  them  a  more  perfect  one,  when  that 
shall  have  been  completed. 

We  may  even  go  a  step  further,  and  make  a  general 
table  of  the  measures,  weights  and  coins  of  all  nations, 
taking  their  value   hypothetically  for  the  present, 


108  Jefferson's  Works 

from  the  tables  in  the  commercial  dictionary  of  the 
encyclopedia  methodique,  which  are  very  extensive, 
and  have  the  appearance  of  being  made  with  great 
labor  and  exactness.  To  these  I  expect  we  must 
in  the  end  recur,  as  a  supplement  for  the  measures 
which  we  may  fail  to  obtain  from  other  countries 
directly.  Their  reference  is  to  the  foot  or  inch  of 
Paris,  as  a  standard,  which  we  may  convert  into 
parts  of  the  second  pendulum  of  450. 

I  have  thus,  my  dear  Sir,  committed  to  writing 
my  general  ideas  on  this  subject,  the  more  freely 
as  they  are  intended  merely  as  suggestions  for  con- 
sideration. It  is  not  probable  they  offer  anything 
which  would  not  have  occurred  to  the  committee 
itself.  My  apology  on  offering  them  must  be  found 
in  your  request.  My  confidence  in  the  committee, 
of, which  I  take  for  granted  you  are  one,  is  too  entire 
to  have  intruded  a  single  idea  but  on  that  ground. 

Be  assured  of  my  affectionate  and  high  esteem 
and  respect. 


TO    DR.    ROBERT    PATTERSON. 

Monticello,  November  10,   181 1. 

Dear  Sir, — I  write  this  letter  separate,  because 
you  may  perhaps  think  something  in  the  other  of 
the  same  date,  worth  communicating  to  the  com- 
mittee. 

I  accept,  willingly,  Mr.  Voigt's  offer  to  make  me 

a  time-piece,  and  with  the  kind  of  pendulum  he 


Correspondence  1 09 

proposes.  I  wish  it  to  be  as  good  as  hands  can  make 
it,  in  everything  useful,  but  no  unnecessary  labor 
to  be  spent  on  mere  ornament.  A  plain  but  neat 
mahogany  case  will  be  preferred. 

I  have  a  curiosity  to  try  the  length  of  the  pendu- 
lum vibrating  seconds  here,  and  would  wish  Mr. 
Voigt  to  prepare  one  which  could  be  substituted  for 
that  of  the  clock  occasionally,  without  requiring 
anything  more  than  unhanging  the  one  and  hanging 
the  other  in  its  place.  The  bob  should  be  spherical, 
of  lead,  and  its  radius,  I  presume,  about  one  inch. 
As  I  should  not  have  the  convenience  of  a  room  of 
uniform  temperature,  the  suspending  rod  should  be 
such  as  not  to  be  affected  by  heat  or  cold,  nor  yet 
so  heavy  as  to  affect  too  sensibly  the  centre  of  oscil- 
lation. Would  not  a  rod  of  wood  not  larger  than 
a  large  wire,  answer  this  double  view?  I  remember 
Mr.  Rittenhouse  told  me  he  had  made  experiments 
on  some  occasion,  on  the  expansibility  of  wood 
lengthwise  by  heat,  which  satisfied  him  it  was  as 
good  as  the  gridiron  for  a  suspender  of  the  bob.  By 
the  experiments  on  the  strength  of  wood  and  iron 
in  supporting  weights  appended  to  them,  iron  has 
been  found  but  about  six  times  as  strong  as  wood, 
while  its  specific  gravity  is  eight  times  as  great. 
Consequently,  a  rod  of  it  of  equal  strength,  will 
weigh  but  three-fourths  of  one  of  iron,  and  disturb 
the  centre  of  oscillation  less  in  proportion.  A  rod  of 
wood  of  white  oak,  e.  g.  not  larger  than  a  seine  twine, 
would  probably  support  a  spherical  bob  of  lead  of 


110  Jefferson's  Works 

one  inch  radius.  It  might  be  worked  down  to  that 
size,  I  suppose,  by  the  cabinet-makers,  who  are  in 
the  practice  of  preparing  smaller  threads  of  wood 
for  inlaying.  The  difficulty  would  be  in  making  it 
fast  to  the  bob  at  one  end,  and  scapement  at  the 
other,  so  as  to  regulate  the  length  with  ease  and 
accuracy.  This  Mr.  Voigt's  ingenuity  can  supply, 
and  in  all  things  I  would  submit  the  whole  matter 
to  your  direction  to  him,  and  be  thankful  to  you  to 
give  it.     Yours  affectionately. 


TO    H.    A.    S.    DEARBORN. 

Monticello,  November  15,  181 1. 
Sir, — Your  favor  of  October  14  was  duly  received, 
and  with  it  Mr.  Bowditch's  observations  on  the 
comet,  for  which  I  pray  you  to  accept  my  thanks, 
and  be  so  good  as  to  present  them  to  Mr.  Bowditch 
also.  I  am  much  pleased  to  find  that  we  have  so 
able  a  person  engaged  in  observing  the  path  of  this 
great  phenomenon;  and  hope  that  from  his  obser- 
vations and  those  of  others  of  our  philosophical 
citizens,  on  its  orbit,  we  shall  have  ascertained,  on 
this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  whether  it  be  one  of  those 
which  have  heretofore  visited  us.  On  the  other 
side  of  the  water  they  have  great  advantages  in 
their  well-established  observatories,  the  magnificent 
instruments  provided  for  them,  and  the  leisure  and 
information  of  their  scientific  men.  The  acquire- 
ments of  Mr.  Bowditch  in  solitude  and  unaided  by 
these  advantages,  do  him  great  honor. 


Correspondence  1 1 1 

With  respect  to  the  eclipse  of  September  17.  I 
know  of  no  observations  made  in  this  State  but  my 
own,  although  I  had  no  doubt  that  others  had 
observed  it.  I  used  myself  an  equatorial  telescope, 
and  was  aided  by  a  friend  who  happened  to  be  with 
me,  and  observed  through  an  achromatic  telescope 
of  Dollard's.  Two  others  attended  the  time-pieces. 
I  had  a  perfect  observation  of  the  passage  of  the  sun 
over  the  meridian,  and  the  eclipse  commencing  but 
a  few  minutes  after,  left  little  room  for  error  in  our 
time.  This  little  was  corrected  by  the  known  rate 
of  going  of  the  clock.  But  we  as  good  as  lost  the 
first  appulse  by  a  want  of  sufficiently  early  attention 
to  be  at  our  places,  and  composed.  I  have  no  con- 
fidence, therefore,  by  several  seconds,  in  the  time 
noted.  The  last  oscillation  of  the  two  luminaries 
was  better  observed.  Yet  even  there  was  a  certain 
term  of  uncertainty  as  to  the  precise  moment  at 
which  the  indenture  on  the  limb  of  the  sun  entirely 
vanished.  It  is  therefore  the  forming  of  the  annulus, 
and  its  breaking,  which  alone  possess  my  entire  and 
complete  confidence.  I  am  certain  there  was  not 
an  error  of  an  instant  of  time  in  the  observation  of 
either  of  them.  Their  result  therefore  should  not 
be  suffered  to  be  affected  by  either  of  the  others, 
The  four  observations  were  as  follows : 

The  1  st  appulse,  oh.  13'  54" 

Annulus  formed,   ih.  53'    o"  \  central  time  of  annulus,  \  central  time  of    the  two 

Annulus  broken,   ih.  59'  25"   J  ih.   56'   12*"  J       contacts,   ih.   51'   28" 

Last   oscillation,    3I1.  29'    2" 

Latitude  of  Monticello,  380  8' 


H2  Jefferson's  Works 

I  have  thus  given  you,  Sir,  my  observations,  with 
a  candid  statement  of  their  imperfections.  If  they 
can  be  of  any  use  to  Mr.  Bowditch,  it  will  be  more 
than  was  in  view  when  they  were  made ;  and  should 
I  hear  of  any  other  observations  made  in  this  State, 
I  shall  not  fail  to  procure  and  send  him  a  copy  of 
them.  Be  so  good  as  to  present  me  affectionately 
to  your  much-esteemed  father,  and  to  accept  the 
tender  of  my  respect. 


TO    MELATIAH    NASH. 

Monticello,  November  15,  181 1. 
Sir, — I  duly  received  your  letter  of  October  24 
on  the  publication  of  an  Ephemeris.  I  have  long 
thought  it  desirable  that  something  of  that  kind 
should  be  published  in  the  United  States,  holding 
a  middle  station  between  the  nautical  and  the 
common  popular  almanacs.  It  would  certainly  be 
acceptable  to  a  numerous  and  respectable  description 
of  our  fellow  citizens,  who,  without  undertaking  the 
higher  astronomical  operations,  for  which  the  former 
is  calculated,  yet  occasionally  wish  for  information 
beyond  the  scope  of  the  common  almanacs.  What 
you  propose  to  insert  in  your  Ephemeris  is  very  well 
so  far.  But  I  think  you  might  give  it  more  of  the 
character  desired  by  the  addition  of  some  other 
articles,  which  would  not  enlarge  it  more  than  a  leaf 
or  two.  For  instance,  the  equation  of  time  is  essen- 
tial to  the  regulation  of  our  clocks  and  watches,  and 


Correspondence  113 

would  only  add  a  narrow  column  to  your  second  page. 
The  sun's  declination  is  often  desirable,  and  would 
add  but  another  narrow  column  to  the  same  page. 
This  last  would  be  the  more  useful  as  an  element 
for  obtaining  the  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun,  in 
every  part  of  the  United  States ;  for  your  Ephemeris 
will,  I  suppose,  give  it  only  for  a  particular  parallel, 
as  of  New  York,  which  would  in  a  great  measure 
restrain  its  circulation  to  that  parallel.  But  the  sun's 
declination  would  enable  every  one  to  calculate 
sunrise  for  himself,  with  scarcely  more  trouble  than 
taking  it  from  an  almanac.  If  you  would  add  at 
the  end  of  the  work  a  formula  for  that  calculation, 
as,  for  example,  that  for  Delalande,  §  1026,  a  little 
altered.  Thus,  to  the  logarithmic  tangent  of  the 
latitude  (a  constant  number)  add  the  logarithmic 
tangent  of  the  sun's  declination;  taking  10  from 
the  Index,  the  remainder  is  the  line  of  an  arch  which, 
turned  into  time  and  added  to  six  hours,  gives  sunrise 
for  the  winter  half  and  sunset  for  the  summer  half 
of  the  year,  to  which  may  be  added  three  lines  only 
from  the  table  of  refractions,  §  1028,  or,  to  save  even 
this  trouble,  and  give  the  calculation  ready  made  for 
every  parallel,  print  a  table  of  semi-diurnal  arches, 
ranging  the  latitudes  from  35°t0  45°ina  line  at  top, 
and  the  degrees  of  declination  in  a  vertical  line  on 
the  left,  and  stating,  in  the  line  of  the  declination, 
the  semi-diurnal  arch  for  each  degree  of  latitude,  so 
that  every  one  knowing  the  latitude  of  his  place  and 
the  declination  of  the  day,  would  find  his  sunrise  or 

VOL.  XIII 8 


n4  Jefferson's  Works 

his  sunset  where  their  horizontal  and  vertical  lines 
meet.  This  table  is  to  be  found  in  many  astro- 
nomical books,  as,  for  instance,  in  Wakeley's  Mari- 
ner's Compass  Rectified,  and  more  accurately  in 
the  Connoissance  des  terns,  for  1788.  It  would  not 
occupy  more  than  two  pages  at  the  end  of  the  work, 
and  would  render  it  an  almanac  for  every  part  of  the 
United  States. 

To  give  novelty,  and  increase  the  appetite  for  con- 
tinuing to  buy  your  Ephemeris  annually,  you  might 
every  year  select  some  one  or  two  useful  tables  which 
many  would  wish  to  possess  and  preserve.  These 
are  to  be  found  in  the  requisite  tables,  the  Connois- 
sance des  terns  for  different  years,  and  many  in 
Pike's  arithmetic. 

I  have  given  these  hints  because  you  requested  my 
opinion.  They  may  extend  the  plan  of  your  Epheme- 
ris beyond  your  view,  which  will  be  sufficient  reason 
for  not  regarding  them.  In  any  event  I  shall 
willingly  become  a  subscriber  to  it,  if  you  should 
have  any  place  of  deposit  for  them  in  Virginia  where 
the  price  can  be  paid.  Accept  the  tender  of  my 
respects. 


TO    DR.    BENJAMIN    RUSH. 

Poplar  Forest,  December  5,  181 1. 
Dear  Sir, — While  at  Monticello  I  am  so  much 
engrossed  by  business  or  society,  that  I  can  only 
write  on  matters  of  strong  urgency.     Here  I  have 


Correspondence  1 1  s 

leisure,  as  I  have  everywhere  the  disposition  to  think 
of  my  friends.  I  recur,  therefore,  to  the  subject  of 
your  kind  letters  relating  to  Mr.  Adams  and  myself, 
which  a  late  occurrence  has  again  presented  to  me. 
I  communicated  to  you  the  correspondence  which 
had  parted  Mrs.  Adams  and  myself,  in  proof  that  I 
could  not  give  friendship  in  exchange  for  such  senti- 
ments as  she  had  recently  taken  up  towards  myself, 
and  avowed  and  maintained  in  her  letters  to  me. 
Nothing  but  a  total  renunciation  of  these  could  admit 
a  reconciliation,  and  that  could  be  cordial  only  in 
proportion  as  the  return  to  ancient  opinions  was 
believed  sincere.  In  these  jaundiced  sentiments 
of  hers  I  had  associated  Mr.  Adams,  knowing  the 
weight  which  her  opinions  had  with  him,  and  not- 
withstanding she  declared  in  her  letters  that  they 
were  not  communicated  to  him.  A  late  incident  has 
satisfied  me  that  I  wronged  him  as  well  as  her,  in  not 
yielding  entire  confidence  to  this  assurance  on  her 
part.     Two  of  the  Mr.  ,  my  neighbors  and 

m 

friends,  took  a  tour  to  the  northward  during  the  last 
summer.  In  Boston  they  fell  into  company  with  Mr. 
Adams,  and  by  his  invitation  passed  a  day  with  him 
at  Brain  tree.  He  spoke  out  to  them  everything 
which  came  uppermost,  and  as  it  occurred  to  his 
mind,  without  any  reserve;  and  seemed  most  dis- 
posed to  dwell  on  those  things  which  happened  during 
his  own  administration.  He  spoke  of  his  masters,  as 
he  called  his  Heads  of  departments,  as  acting  above 
his  control,  and  often  against  his  opinions.     Among 


"6  Jefferson's  Works 

many  other  topics,  he  adverted  to  the  unprincipled 
licentiousness  of  the  press  against  myself,  adding,  "  I 
always  loved  Jefferson,  and  still  love  him." 

This  is  enough  for  me.  I  only  needed  this  knowl- 
edge to  revive  towards  him  all  the  affections  of  the 
most  cordial  moments  of  our  lives.  Changing  a 
single  word  only  in  Dr.  Franklin's  character  of  him, 
I  knew  him  to  be  always  an  honest  man,  often  a 
great  one,  but  sometimes  incorrect  and  precipitate 
in  his  judgments;  and  it  is  known  to  those  who  have 
ever  heard  me  speak  of  Mr.  Adams,  that  I  have  ever 
done  him  justice  myself,  and  defended  him  when 
assailed  by  others,  with  the  single  exception  as  to 
political  opinions.  But  with  a  man  possessing  so 
many  other  estimable  qualities,  why  should  we  be 
dissocialized  by  mere  differences  of  opinion  in  politics, 
in  religion,  in  philosophy,  or  anything  else?  His 
opinions  are  as  honestly  formed  as  my  own.  Our 
different  views  of  the  same  subject  are  the  result  of  a 
difference  in  our  organization  and  experience.  I 
never  withdrew  from  the  society  of  any  man  on  this 
account,  although  many  have  done  it  from  me; 
much  less  should  I  do  it  from  one  with  whom  I  had 
gone  through,  with  hand  and  heart,  so  many  trying 
scenes.  I  wish,  therefore,  but  for  an  apposite  occa- 
sion to  express  to  Mr.  Adams  my  unchanged  affec- 
tions for  him.  There  is  an  awkwardness  which 
hangs  over  the  resuming  a  correspondence  so  long 
discontinued,  unless  something  could  arise  which 
should   call   for   a  letter.     Time   and   chance   may 


Correspondence  117 

perhaps  generate  such  an  occasion,  of  which  I  shall 
not  be  wanting  in  promptitude  to  avail  myself. 
From  this  fusion  of  mutual  affections,  Mrs.  Adams 
is  of  course  separated.  It  will  only  be  necessary  that 
I  never  name  her.  In  your  letters  to  Mr.  Adams, 
you  can,  perhaps,  suggest  my  continued  cordiality 
towards  him,  and  knowing  this,  should  an  occasion 
of  writing  first  present  itself  to  him,  he  will  perhaps 
avail  himself  of  it,  as  I  certainly  will,  should  it  first 
occur  to  me.  No  ground  for  jealousy  now  existing, 
he  will  certainly  give  fair  play  to  the  natural  warmth 
of  his  heart.  Perhaps  I  may  open  the  way  in  some 
letter  to  my  old  friend  Gerry,  who  I  know  is  in  habits 
of  the  greatest  intimacy  with  him. 

I  have  thus,  my  friend,  laid  open  my  heart  to  you, 
because  you  were  so  kind  as  to  take  an  interest  in 
healing  again  revolutionary  affections,  which  have 
ceased  in  expression  only,  but  not  in  their  existence. 
God  ever  bless  you,  and  preserve  you  in  life  and 
health. 


TO    DR.    JOHN    CRAWFORD. 

Monticello,  January  2,  181 2. 
Sir, — Your  favor  of  December  17th,  has  been 
duly  received,  and  with  it  the  pamphlet  on  the  cause, 
seat  and  cure  of  diseases,  for  which  be  pleased  to 
accept  my  thanks.  The  commencement  which  you 
propose  by  the  natural  history  of  the  diseases  of  the 

human  body,  is  a  very  interesting  one,  and  will  ger- 


n8  Jefferson's  Works 

tainly  be  the  best  foundation  for  whatever  relates 
to  their  cure.  While  surgery  is  seated  in  the  temple 
of  the  exact  sciences,  medicine  has  scarcely  entered 
its  threshold.  Her  theories  have  passed  in  such 
rapid  succession  as  to  prove  the  insufficiency  of  all, 
and  their  fatal  errors  are  recorded  in  the  necrology 
of  man.  For  some  forms  of  disease,  well  known 
and  well  defined,  she  has  found  substances  which 
will  restore  order  to  the  human  system,  and  it  is  to 
be  hoped  that  observation  and  experience  will  add 
to  their  number.  But  a  great  mass  of  diseases 
remain  undistinguished  and  unknown,  exposed  to 
the  random  shot  of  the  theory  of  the  day.  If  on 
this  chaos  you  can  throw  such  a  beam  of  light  as 
your  celebrated  brother  has  done  on  the  sources  of 
animal  heat,  you  will,  like  him,  render  great  service 
to  mankind. 

The  fate  of  England,  I  think  with  you,  is  nearly 
decided,  and  the  present  form  of  her  existence  is 
drawing  to  a  close.  The  ground,  the  houses,  the 
men  will  remain;  but  in  what  new  form  they  will 
revive  and  stand  among  nations,  is  beyond  the  reach 
of  human  foresight.  We  hope  it  may  be  one  of 
which  the  predatory  principle  may  not  be  the  essen- 
tial characteristic.  If  her  transformation  shall 
replace  her  under  the  laws  of  moral  order,  it  is  for 
the  general  interest  that  she  should  still  be  a  sensible 
and  independent  weight  in  the  scale  of  nations,  and 
be  able  to  contribute,  when  a  favorable  moment 
presents  itself,  to  reduce  under  the  same  order,  her 


Correspondence  1 1 9 

great  rival  in  flagitiousness.  We  especially  ought 
to  pray  that  the  powers  of  Europe  may  be  so  poised 
and  counterpoised  among  themselves,  that  their 
own  safety  may  require  the  presence  of  all  their 
force  at  home,  leaving  the  other  quarters  of  the 
globe  in  undisturbed  tranquillity.  When  our  strength 
will  permit  us  to  give  the  law  of  our  hemisphere, 
it  should  be  that  the  meridian  of  the  mid- Atlantic 
should  be  the  line  of  demarkation  between  war  and 
peace,  on  this  side  of  which  no  act  of  hostility  should 
be  committed,  and  the  lion  and  the  lamb  lie  down 
in  peace  together. 

I  am  particularly  thankful  for  the  kind  expressions 
of  your  letter  towards  myself,  and  tender  you  in 
return  my  best  wishes  and  the  assurances  of  my 
great  respect  and  esteem. 


TO    THOMAS    SULLY.  , 


Monticello,  January  8,  1812. 
Sir, — I  have  duly  received  your  favor  of  December 
2 2d,  informing  me  that  the  society  of  artists  of  the 
United  States  had  made  me  an  honorary  member 
of  their  society.  I  am  very  justly  sensible  of  the 
honor  they  have  done  me,  and  I  pray  you  to  return 
them  my  thanks  for  this  mark  of  their  distinction. 
I  fear  that  I  can  be  but  a  very  useless  associate. 
Time,  which  withers  the  fancy,  as  the  other  faculties 
of  the  mind  and  body,  presses  on  me  with  a  heavy 
hand,   and  distance  intercepts  all  personal  inter- 


120  Jefferson's  Works 

course.  I  can  offer,  therefore,  but  my  zealous  good 
wishes  for  the  success  of  the  institution,  and  that, 
embellishing  with  taste  a  country  already  overflow- 
ing with  the  useful  productions,  it  may  be  able  to 
give  an  innocent  and  pleasing  direction  to  accumu- 
lations of  wealth,  which  would  otherwise  be  employed 
in  the  nourishment  of  coarse  and  vicious  habits. 
With  these  I  tender  to  the  society  and  to  yourself 
the  assurances  of  my  high  respect  and  consideration. 


TO    COLONEL   JAMES    MONROE. 

Monticello,  January  n,  1812. 

Dear  Sir, — I  thank  you  for  your  letter  of  the 
6th.  It  is  a  proof  of  your  friendship,  and  of  the 
sincere  interest  you  take  in  whatever  concerns  me. 
Of  this  I  have  never  had  a  moment's  doubt,  and 
have  ever  valued  it  as  a  precious  treasure.  The 
question  indeed  whether  I  knew  or  approved  of 
General  Wilkinson's  endeavors  to  prevent  the  resto- 
ration of  the  right  of  deposit  at  New  Orleans,  could 
never  require  a  second  of  time  to  answer.  But  it 
requires  some  time  for  the  mind  to  recover  from 
the  astonishment  excited  by  the  boldness  of  the 
suggestion.  Indeed,  it  is  with  difficulty  I  can 
believe  he  has  really  made  such  an  appeal;  and  the 
rather  as  the  expression  in  your  letter  is  that  you 
have  "  casually  heard  it,"  without  stating  the  degree 
of  telia&ce  which  you  have  in  the  source  of  infor- 


Correspondence  121 

mation.  I  think  his  understanding  is  above  an 
expedient  so  momentary  and  so  finally  overwhelming. 
Were  Dearborn  and  myself  dead,  it  might  find  credit 
with  some.  But  the  world  at  large,  even  then, 
would  weigh  for  themselves  the  dilemma,  whether 
it  was  more  probable  that,  in  the  situation  I  then 
was,  clothed  with  the  confidence  and  power  of  my 
country,  I  should  descend  to  so  unmeaning  an  act 
of  treason,  or  that  he,  in  the  wreck  now  threatening 
him,  should  wildly  lay  hold  of  any  plank.  They 
would  weigh  his  motives  and  views  against  those  of 
Dearborn  and  myself,  the  tenor  of  his  life  against 
that  of  ours,  his  Spanish  mysteries  against  my  open 
cherishment  of  the  western  interests;  and,  living 
as  we  are,  and  ready  to  purge  ourselves  by  any  ordeal, 
they  must  now  weigh,  in  addition,  our  testimony 
against  his.  All  this  makes  me  believe  he  will  never 
seek  this  refuge.  I  have  ever  and  carefully  restrained 
myself  from  the  expression  of  any  opinion  respecting 
General  Wilkinson,  except  in  the  case  of  Burr's 
conspiracy,  wherein,  after  he  had  got  over  his  first 
agitations,  we  believed  his  decision  firm,  and  his 
conduct  zealous  for  the  defeat  of  the  conspiracy, 
and  although  injudicious,  yet  meriting,  from  sound 
intentions,  the  support  of  the  nation.  As  to  the 
rest  of  his  life,  I  have  left  it  to  his  friends  and  his 
enemies,  to  whom  it  furnishes  matter  enough  for 
disputation.  I  classed  myself  with  neither,  and 
least  of  all  in  this  time  of  his  distresses,  should  I  be 
disposed  to  add  to  their  pressure.     I  hope,  therefore, 


122  Jefferson's  Works 

he  has  not  been  so  imprudent  as  to  write  our  names 
in  the  panel  of  his  witnesses. 

Accept  the  assurances  of  my  constant  affections. 


TO    JOHN    ADAMS. 

Monticello,  January  21,  181 2. 
Dear  Sir, — I  thank  you  beforehand  (for  they  are 
not  yet  arrived)  for  the  specimens  of  homespun  you 
have  been  so  kind  as  to  forward  me  by  post.  I  doubt 
not  their  excellence,  knowing  how  far  you  are 
advanced  in  these  things  in  your  quarter.  Here 
we  do  little  in  the  fine  way,  but  in  coarse  and 
middling  goods  a  great  deal.  Every  family  in  the 
country  is  a  manufactory  within  itself,  and  is  very 
generally  able  to  make  within  itself  all  the  stouter 
and  middling  stuffs  for  its  own  clothing  and  house- 
hold use.  We  consider  a  sheep  for  every  person  in 
the  family  as  sufficient  to  clothe  it,  in  addition  to 
the  cotton,  hemp  and  flax  which  we  raise  ourselves. 
For  fine  stuff  we  shall  depend  on  your  northern 
manufactories.  Of  these,  that  is  to  say,  of  com- 
pany establishments,  we  have  none.  We  use  little 
machinery.  The  spinning  jenny,  and  loom  with  the 
flying  shuttle,  can  be  managed  in  a  family;  but 
nothing  more  complicated.  The  economy  and 
thriftiness  resulting  from  our  household  manufac- 
tures are  such  that  they  will  never  again  be  laid 
aside;  and  nothing  more  salutary  for  us  has  ever 
happened    than    the    British    obstructions    to    our 


Correspondence  123 

demands  for  their  manufactures.  Restore  free  inter- 
course when  they  will,  their  commerce  with  us  will 
have  totally  changed  its  form,  and  the  articles  we 
shall  in  future  want  from  them  will  not  exceed  their 
own  consumption  of  our  produce. 

A  letter  from  you  calls  up  recollections  very  dear 
to  my  mind.  It  carries  me  back  to  the  times  when, 
beset  with  difficulties  and  dangers,  we  were  fellow 
laborers  in  the  same  cause,  struggling  for  what  is 
most  valuable  to  man,  his  right  of  self-government. 
Laboring  always  at  the  same  oar,  with  some  wave 
ever  ahead,  threatening  to  overwhelm  us,  and  yet 
passing  harmless  under  our  bark,  we  knew  not  how 
we  rode  through  the  storm  with  heart  and  hand, 
and  made  a  happy  port.  Still  we  did  not  expect  to 
be  without  rubs  and  difficulties;  and  we  have  had 
them.  First,  the  detention  of  the  western  posts,  then 
the  coalition  of  Pilnitz,  outlawing  our  commerce 
with  France,  and  the  British  enforcement  of  the 
outlawry.  In  your  day,  French  depredations;  in 
mine,  English,  and  the  Berlin  and  Milan  decrees; 
now,  the  English  orders  of  council,  and  the  piracies 
they  authorize.  When  these  shall  be  over,  it  will 
be  the  impressment  of  our  seamen  or  something 
else;  and  so  we  have  gone  on,  and  so  we  shall  go  on, 
puzzled  and  prospering  beyond  example  in  the 
history  of  man.  And  I  do  believe  we  shall  continue 
to  growl,  to  multiply  and  prosper  until  we  exhibit  a,n 
association,  powerful,  wise  and  happy,  beyond  what 
has  yet  been  seen  by  men.    As  for  France  and  Eng- 


i24  Jefferson's  Works 

land,  with  all  their  preeminence  in  science,  the  one 
is  a  den  of  robbers,  and  the  other  of  pirates.  And 
if  science  produces  no  better  fruits  than  tyranny, 
murder,  rapine  and  destitution  of  national  morality, 
I  would  rather  wish  our  country  to  be  ignorant, 
honest  and  estimable,  as  our  neighboring  savages 
are.  But  whither  is  senile  garrulity  leading  me? 
Into  politics,  of  which  I  have  taken  final  leave.  I 
think  little  of  them  and  say  less.  I  have  given  up 
newspapers  in  exchange  for  Tacitus  and  Thucydides, 
for  Newton  and  Euclid,  and  I  find  myself  much  the 
happier.  Sometimes,  indeed,  I  look  back  to  former 
occurrences,  in  remembrance  of  our  old  friends  and 
fellow  laborers,  who  have  fallen  before  us.  Of  the 
signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  I  see 
now  living  not  more  than  half  a  dozen  on  your  side 
of  the  Potomac,  and  on  this  side,  myself  alone. 
You  and  I  have  been  wonderfully  spared,  and  myself 
with  remarkable  health,  and  a  considerable  activity 
of  body  and  mind.  I  am  on  horseback  three  or 
four  hours  of  every  day;  visit  three  or  four  times  a 
year  a  possession  I  have  ninety  miles  distant,  per- 
forming the  winter  journey  on  horseback.  I  walk 
little,  however,  a  single  mile  being  too  much  for  me, 
and  I  live  in  the  midst  of  my  grandchildren,  one  of 
whom  has  lately  promoted  me  to  be  a  great-grand- 
father. I  have  heard  with  pleasure  that  you  also 
retain  good  health,  and  a  greater  power  of  exercise 
in  walking  than  I  do.  But  I  would  rather  have 
heard  this  from  yourself,  and  that,  writing  a  letter 


Correspondence  125 

like  mine,  full  of  egotisms,  and  of  details  of  your 
health,  your  habits,  occupations  and  enjoyments, 
I  should  have  the  pleasure  of  knowing  that  in  the 
race  of  life,  you  do  not  keep,  in  its  physical  decline, 
the  same  distance  ahead  of  me  which  you  have  done 
in  political  honors  and  achievements.  No  circum- 
stances have  lessened  the  interest  I  feel  in  these 
particulars  respecting  yourself;  none  have  sus- 
pended for  one  moment  my  sincere  esteem  for  you, 
and  I  now  salute  you  with  unchanged  affection  and 
respect. 


TO  HIS  EXCELLENCY  GOVERNOR  JAMES  BARBOUR.1 

Monticello,  January  22,   181 2. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  the  14th  has  been  duly 
received,  and  I  sincerely  congratulate  you,  or  rather 
my  country,  on  the  just  testimony  of  confidence  which 
it  has  lately  manifested  to  you.  In  your  hands  I 
know  that  its  affairs  will  be  ably  and  honestly 
administered. 

In  answer  to  your  inquiry  whether,  in  the  early 
times  of  our  government,  where  the  council  was 
divided,  the  practice  was  for  the  Governor  to  give 
the  deciding  vote?  I  must  observe  that,  correctly 
speaking,  the  Governor  not  being  a  counsellor,  his 
vote  could  make  no  part  of  an  advice  of  council. 
That  would  be  to  place  an  advice  on  their  journals 
which  they  did  not  give,  and  could  not  give  because 
1  Govenw  of  Virginia, 


126  Jefferson's  Works 

of  their  equal  division.  But  he  did  what  was  equiva- 
lent in  effect.  While  I  was  in  the  administration, 
no  doubt  was  ever  suggested  that  where  the  council, 
divided  in  opinion,  could  give  no  advice,  the  Gover- 
nor was  free  and  bound  to  act  on  his  own  opinion 
and  his  own  responsibility.  Had  this  been  a  change 
of  the  practice  of  my  predecessor,  Mr,  Henry,  the 
first  Governor,  it  would  have  produced  some  dis- 
cussion, which  it  never  did.  Hence,  I  conclude  it 
was  the  opinion  and  practice  from  the  first  insti- 
tution of  the  government.  During  Arnold's  and 
Cornwallis'  invasion,  the  council  dispersed  to  their 
several  homes,  to  take  care  of  their  families.  Before 
their  separation,  I  obtained  from  them  a  capitulary 
of  standing  advices  for  my  government  in  such  cases 
as  ordinarily  occur:  such  as  the  appointment  of 
militia  officers,  justices,  inspectors,  etc.,  on  the 
recommendations  of  the  courts;  but  in  the  numerous 
and  extraordinary  occurrences  of  an  invasion,  which 
could  not  be  foreseen,  I  had  to  act  on  my  own  judg- 
ment and  my  own  responsibility.  The  vote  of 
general  approbation,  at  the  session  of  the  succeeding 
winter,  manifested  the  opinion  of  the  legislature, 
that  my  proceedings  had  been  correct.  General 
Nelson,  my  successor,  staid  mostly,  I  think,  with  the 
army ;  and  I  do  not  believe  his  council  followed  the 
camp,  although  my  memory  does  not  enable  me  to 
affirm  the  fact.  Some  petitions  against  him  for 
impressment  of  property  without  authority  of  law, 
brought  his  proceedings  before  the  next  legislature; 


Correspondence  127 

the  questions  necessarily  involved  were  whether 
necessity,  without  express  law,  could  justify  the 
impressment,  and  if  it  could,  whether  he  could  order 
it  without  the  advice  of  council.  The  approbation 
of  the  legislature  amounted  to  a  decision  of  both 
questions.  I  remember  this  case  the  more  especially, 
because  I  was  then  a  member  of  the  legislature,  and 
was  one  of  those  who  supported  the  Governor's 
proceedings,  and  I  think  there  was  no  division  of  the 
House  on  the  question.  I  believe  the  doubt  was 
first  suggested  in  Governor  Harrison's  time,  by  some 
member  of  the  council,  on  an  equal  division.  Harri- 
son, in  his  dry  way,  observed  that  instead  of  one 
Governor  and  eight  counsellors,  there  would  then  be 
eight  Governors  and  one  counsellor,  and  continued, 
as  I  understood,  the  practice  of  his  predecessors. 
Indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  suppose  it  could  be  the  inten- 
tion of  those  who  framed  the  Constitution,  that  when 
the  council  should  be  divided  the  government  should 
stand  still ;  and  the  more  difficult  as  to  a  Constitution 
formed  during  a  war,  and  for  the  purpose  of  carrying 
on  that  war,  that  so  high  an  officer  as  their  Governor 
should  be  created  and  salaried,  merely  to  act  as  the 
clerk  and  authenticator  of  the  votes  of  the  council. 
No  doubt  it  was  intended  that  the  advice  of  the 
council  should  control  the  Governor.  But  the  action 
of  the  controlling  power  being  withdrawn,  his  would 
be  left  free  to  proceed  on  its  own  responsibility. 
Where  from  division,  absence,  sickness  or  other 
obstacle,  no  advice  could  be  given,  they  could  not 


128  Jefferson's  Works 

mean  that  their  Governor,  the  person  or  their  peculiar 
choice  and  confidence,  should  stand  by,  an  inactive 
spectator,  and  let  their  government  tumble  to  pieces 
for  want  of  a  will  to  direct  it.  In  executive  cases, 
where  promptitude  and  decision  are  all-important, 
an  adherence  to  the  letter  of  a  law  against  its  prob- 
able intentions,  (for  every  law  must  intend  that 
itself  shall  be  executed,)  would  be  fraught  with 
incalculable  danger.  Judges  may  await  further 
legislative  explanations,  but  a  delay  of  executive 
action  might  produce  irretrievable  ruin.  The  State 
is  invaded,  militia  to  be  called  out,  an  army  marched, 
arms  and  provisions  to  be  issued  from  the  public 
magazines,  the  legislature  to  be  convened,  and  the 
council  is  divided.  Can  it  be  believed  to  have  been 
the  intention  of  the  framers  of  the  Constitution,  that 
the  Constitution  itself  and  their  constituents  with 
it  should  be  destroyed  for  want  of  a  will  to  direct 
the  resources  they  had  provided  for  its  preservation? 
Before  such  possible  consequences  all  verbal  scruples 
must  vanish ;  construction  must  be  made  secundum 
arbitrium  boni  viri,  and  the  Constitution  be  rendered 
a  practicable  thing.  That  exposition  of  it  must  be 
vicious,  which  would  leave  the  nation  under  the  most 
dangerous  emergencies  without  a  directing  will. 
The  cautious  maxims  of  the  bench,  to  seek  the  will 
of  the  legislator  and  his  words  only,  are  proper  and 
safer  for  judicial  government.  They  act  ever  on  an 
individual  case  only,  the  evil  of  which  is  partial,  and 
gives  time  for  correction.     But  an  instant  of  delay 


Correspondence  129 

in  executive  proceedings  may  be  fatal  to  the  whole 
nation.  They  must  not,  therefore,  be  laced  up  in 
the  rules  of  the  judiciary  department.  They  must 
seek  the  intention  of  the  legislator  in  all  the  circum- 
stances which  may  indicate  it  in  the  history  of  the 
day,  in  the  public  discussions,  in  the  general  opinion 
and  understanding,  in  reason  and  in  practice.  The 
three  great  departments  having  distinct  functions 
to  perform,  must  have  distinct  rules  adapted  to 
them.  Each  must  act  under  its  own  rules,  those  of 
no  one  having  any  obligation  on  either  of  the  others. 
When  the  opinion  first  began  that  a  Governor  could 
not  act  when  his  council  could  not  or  would  not 
advise,  I  am  uninformed.  Probably  not  till  after 
the  war;  for,  had  it  prevailed  then,  no  militia  could 
have  been  opposed  to  Cornwallis,  nor  necessaries 
furnished  to  the  opposing  army  of  La  Fayette. 
These,  Sir,  are  my  recollections  and  thoughts  on 
the  subject  of  your  inquiry,  to  which  I  will  only  add 
the  assurances  of  my  great  esteem  and  respect. 


TO    BENJAMIN    GALLOWAY. 

Monticello,  February  2,  181 2. 
Sir, — I  duly  received  your  favor  of  the  1st  instant, 
together  with  the  volume  accompanying  it,  for 
which  I  pray  you  to  accept  my  thanks,  and  to  be 
so  kind  as  to  convey  them  to  Mrs.  Debutts  also,  to 
whose  obliging  care  I  am  indebted  for  its  trans 
mission.     But  especially  my  thanks  are  due  to  the 

VOL.  XIII — 9 


i3°  Jefferson's  Works 

author  himself  for  the  honorable  mention  he  has 
made  of  me.  With  the  exception  of  two  or  three 
characters  of  greater  eminence  in  the  revolution,  we 
formed  a  group  of  fellow  laborers  in  the  common 
cause,  animated  by  a  common  zeal,  and  claiming  no 
distinction  of  one  over  another. 

The  spirit  of  freedom,  breathed  through  the  whole 
of  Mr.  Northmore's  composition,  is  really  worthy  of 
the  purest  times  of  Greece  and  Rome.  It  would 
have  been  received  in  England,  in  the  days  of  Hamp- 
den and  Sidney,  with  more  favor  than  at  this  time. 
It  marks  a  high  and  independent  mind  in  the  author, 
one  capable  of  rising  above  the  partialities  of  country, 
to  have  seen  in  the  adversary  cause  that  of  justice 
and  freedom,  and  to  have  estimated  fairly  the 
motives  and  actions  of  those  engaged  in  its  support. 
I  hope  and  firmly  believe  that  the  whole  world  will, 
sooner  or  later,  feel  benefit  from  the  issue  of  our  asser- 
tion of  the  rights  of  man.  Although  the  horrors  of 
the  French  Revolution  have  damped  for  awhile  the 
ardor  of  the  patriots  in  every  country,  yet  it  is  not 
extinguished — it  will  never  die.  The  sense  of  right 
has  been  excited  in  every  breast,  and  the  spark  will 
be  rekindled  by  the  very  oppressions  of  that  detest- 
able tyranny  employed  to  quench  it.  The  errors 
of  the  honest  patriots  of  France,  and  the  crimes  of 
her  Dantons  and  Robespierres,  will  be  forgotten  in 
the  more  encouraging  contemplation  of  our  sober 
example,  and  steady  march  to  our  object.  Hope 
will  strengthen  the  presumption  that  what  has  been 


Correspondence  131 

done  once  may  be  done  again.  As  you  have  been 
the  channel  of  my  receiving  this  mark  of  attention 
from  Mr.  Northmore,  I  must  pray  you  to  be  that 
of  conveying  to  him  my  thanks,  and  an  assurance 
of  the  high  sense  I  have  of  the  merit  of  his  work,  and 
of  its  tendency  to  cherish  the  noblest  virtues  of  the 
human  character. 

On  the  political  events  of  the  day  I  have  nothing 
to  communicate.  I  have  retired  from  them,  and 
given  up  newspapers  for  more  classical  reading.  I 
add,  therefore,  only  the  assurances  of  my  great 
esteem  and  respect. 


TO    EZRA    SARGEANT. 

Monticello,  February  3,  1812. 

Sir, — Observing  that  you  edit  the  Edinburgh 
Review,  reprinted  in  New  York,  and  presuming  that 
your  occupations  in  that  line  are  not  confined  to 
that  single  work,  I  take  the  liberty  of  addressing 
the  present  letter  to  you.  If  I  am  mistaken,  the 
obviousness  of  the  inference  will  be  my  apology. 
Mr.  Edward  Livingston  brought  an  action  against 
me  for  having  removed  his  intrusion  on  the  beach  of 
the  river  Mississippi  opposite  to  New  Orleans.  At 
the  request  of  my  counsel  I  made  a  statement  of  the 
facts  of  the  case,  and  of  the  law  applicable  to  them, 
so  as  to  form  a  full  argument  of  justification.  The 
case  has  been  dismissed  from  court  for  want  of 
jurisdiction,    and    the    public    remain    uninformed 


i32  Jefferson's  Works 

whether  I  had  really  abused  the  powers  entrusted 
to  me,  as  he  alleged.  I  wish  to  convey  to  them  this 
information  by  publishing  the  justification.  The 
questions  arising  in  the  case  are  mostly  under  the 
civil  law,  the  laws  of  Spain  and  of  France,  which  are 
of  course  couched  in  French,  in  Spanish,  in  Latin, 
and  some  in  Greek ;  and  the  books  being  in  few  hands 
in  this  country,  I  was  obliged  to  make  very  long  ex- 
tracts from  them.  The  correctness  with  which  your 
edition  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  is  printed,  and  of 
the  passages  quoted  in  those  languages,  induces  me 
to  propose  to  you  the  publication  of  the  case  I  speak 
of.  It  will  fill  about  65  or  70  pages  of  the  type  and 
size  of  paper  of  the  Edinburgh  Review.  The  MS. 
is  in  the  handwriting  of  this  letter,  entirely  fair  and 
correct.  It  will  take  between  four  and  five  sheets 
of  paper,  of  sixteen  pages  each.  I  should  want  250 
copies  struck  off  for  myself,  intended  principally  for 
the  members  of  Congress,  and  the  printer  would  be 
at  liberty  to  print  as  many  more  as  he  pleased  for 
sale,  but  without  any  copyright,  which  I  should  not 
propose  to  have  taken  out.  It  is  right  that  I  should 
add,  that  the  work  is  not  at  all  for  popular  reading. 
It  is  merely  a  law  argument,  and  a  very  dry  one; 
having  been  intended  merely  for  the  eye  of  my 
counsel.  It  may  be  in  some  demand  perhaps  with 
lawyers,  and  persons  engaged  in  the  public  affairs, 
but  very  little  beyond  that.  Will  you  be  so  good  as 
to  inform  me  if  you  will  undertake  to  edit  this,  and 
what  would  be  the  terms  on  which  you  can  furnish 


Correspondence  133 

me  with  250  copies?  I  should  want  it  to  be  done 
with  as  little  delay  as  possible,  so  that  Congress 
might  receive  it  before  they  separate ;  and  I  should 
add  as  a  condition,  that  not  a  copy  should  be  sold 
until  I  could  receive  my  number,  and  have  time  to 
lay  them  on  the  desks  of  the  members.  This  would 
require  a  month  from  the  time  they  should  leave 
New  York  by  the  stage.  In  hopes  of  an  early 
answer  I  tender  you  the  assurances  of  my  respect. 


TO    DR.    WHEATON. 

Monticello,  February  14,   181 2. 

Thomas  Jefferson  presents  his  compliments  to 
Dr.  Wheaton,  and  his  thanks  for  the  address  he  was 
so  kind  as  to  enclose  him  on  the  advancement  in 
medicine  Having  little  confidence  in  the  theories 
of  that  art,  which  change  in  their  fashion  with  the 
ladies'  caps  and  gowns,  he  has  much  in  the  facts  it 
has  established  by  observation.  The  experience 
of  physicians  has  proved  that  in  certain  forms  of 
disease  certain  substances  will  restore  order  to  the 
human  system;  and  he  doubts  not  that  continued 
observation  will  enlarge  the  catalogue,  and  give 
relief  to  our  posterity  in  cases  wherein  we  are  without 
it.  The  extirpation  of  the  small  pox  by  vaccination, 
is  an  encouraging  proof  that  the  condition  of  man  is 
susceptible  of  amelioration,  although  we  are  not  able 
to  fix  its  extent.  He  salutes  Dr.  Wheaton  with 
esteem  and  respect. 


*34  Jefferson's  Works 

TO    CHARLES    CHRISTIAN. 

Monticello,  March  21,  181 2. 
Sir, — I  have  duly  received  your  favor  of  the  10th 
instant,  proposing  to  me  to  join  in  a  contribution 
for  the  support  of  the  family  of  the  late  Mr.  Cheetham 
of  New  York.  Private  charities,  as  well  as  contri- 
butions to  public  purposes  in  proportion  to  every 
one's  circumstances,  are  certainly  among  the  duties 
we  owe  to  society,  and  I  have  never  felt  a  wish  to 
withdraw  from  my  portion  of  them.  The  general 
relation  in  which  I,  some  time  since,  stood  to  the 
citizens  of  all  our  States,  drew  on  me  such  multitudes 
of  these  applications  as  exceeded  all  resource.  Nor 
have  they  much  abated  since  my  retirement  to  the 
limited  duties  of  a  private  citizen,  and  the  more 
limited  resources  of  a  private  fortune.  They  have 
obliged  me  to  lay  down  as  a  law  of  conduct  for 
myself,  to  restrain  my  contributions  for  public 
institutions  to  the  circle  of  my  own  State,  and  for 
private  charities  to  that  which  is  under  my  own 
observation;  and  these  calls  I  find  more  than  suffi- 
cient for  everything  I  can  spare.  Nor  was  there 
anything  in  the  case  of  the  late  Mr.  Cheetham,  which 
could  claim  with  me  to  be  taken  out  of  a  general 
rule.  On  these  considerations  I  must  decline  the 
contribution  you  propose,  not  doubting  that  the 
efforts  of  the  family,  aided  by  those  who  stand  in  the 
relation  to  them  of  neighbors  and  friends,  in  so  great 
a  mart  for  industry,  as  they  are  placed  in,  will  save 


Correspondence  1 3  5 

them  from  all  danger  of  want  or  suffering.  With 
this  apology  for  returning  the  paper  sent  me,  unsub- 
scribed, be  pleased  to  accept  the  tender  of  my  respect. 


TO    F.    A.    VAN    DER   KEMP. 

Monticello,  March  22,   1812. 

Sir, — I  am  indebted  to  you  for  the  communication 
of  the  prospectus  of  a  work  embracing  the  history 
of  civilized  man,  political  and  moral,  from  the  great 
change  produced  in  his  condition  by  the  extension 
of  the  feudal  system  over  Europe  through  all  the 
successive  effects  of  the  revival  of  letters,  the  inven- 
tion of  printing,  that  of  the  compass,  the  enlarge- 
ment of  science,  and  the  'revolutionary  spirit, 
religious  and  civil,  generated  by  that.  It  presents 
a  vast  anatomy  of  fact  and  reflection,  which  if  duly 
filled  up  would  offer  to  the  human  mind  a  wonderful 
mass  for  contemplation. 

Your  letter  does  not  ascertain  whether  this  work 
is  already  executed,  or  only  meditated;  but  it 
excites  a  great  desire  to  see  it  completed,  and  a  con- 
fidence that  the  author  of  the  analysis  is  best  able 
to  develop  the  profound  views  there  only  sketched. 
It  would  be  a  library  in  itself,  and  to  our  country 
particularly  desirable  and  valuable,  if  executed  in 
the  genuine  republican  principles  of  our  Constitution. 
The  only  orthodox  object  of  the  institution  of  govern- 
ment is  to  secure  the  greatest  degree  of  happiness 
possible  to  the  general  mass  of  those  associated  under 


136  Jefferson's  Works 

it.  The  events  which  this  work  proposes  to  embrace 
will  establish  the  fact  that  unless  the  mass  retains 
sufficient  control  over  those  intrusted  with  the 
powers  of  their  government,  these  will  be  perverted 
to  their  own  oppression,  and  to  the  perpetuation  of 
wealth  and  power  in  the  individuals  and  their 
families  selected  for  the  trust.  Whether  our  Consti- 
tution has  hit  on  the  exact  degree  of  control  neces- 
sary, is.  yet  under  experiment;  and  it  is  a  most 
encouraging  reflection  that  distance  and  other 
difficulties  securing  us  against  the  brigand  govern- 
ments of  Europe,  in  the  safe  enjoyment  of  our  farms 
and  firesides,  the  experiment  stands  a  better  chance 
of  being  satisfactorily  made  here  than  on  any 
occasion  yet  presented  by  history.  To  promote, 
therefore,  unanimity  and  perseverance  in  this  great 
enterprise,  to  disdain  despair,  encourage  trial,  and 
nourish  hope,  and  the  worthiest  objects  of  every 
political  and  philanthropic  work;  and  that  this 
would  be  the  necessary  result  of  that  which  you 
have  delineated,  the  facts  it  will  review,  and  the 
just  reflections  arising  out  of  them,  will  sufficiently 
answer.  I  hope,  therefore,  that  it  is  not  in  petto 
merely,  but  already  completed ;  and  that  my  fellow 
citizens,  warned  in  it  of  the  rocks  and  shoals  on 
which  other  political  associations  have  been  wrecked, 
will  be  able  to  direct  theirs  with  a  better  knowledge 
of  the  dangers  in  its  way. 

The   enlargement   of   your   observations   on   the 
subjects  of  natural  history,  alluded  to  in  your  letter, 


Correspondence  137 

cannot  fail  to  add  to  our  lights  respecting  them,  and 
will  therefore  ever  be  a  welcome  present  to  every 
friend  of  science.  Accept,  I  pray  you,  the  assur- 
ance of  my  great  esteem  and  respect. 


TO    THE    HONORABLE    HUGH    NELSON. 

Monticello,  April  2,   181 2. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  letter  of  March  2 2d  has  been 
duly  received.  By  this  time  a  printed  copy  of  my 
MS.  respecting  the  batture  has  I  hope  been  laid  on 
your  desk,  by  which  you  will  perceive  that  the  MS. 
itself  has  been  received  long  enough  to  have  been 
sent  to  New  York,  printed  and  returned  to  Wash- 
ington. 

On  the  subject  of  the  omission  of  the  officers  of  the 
Virginia  State  line,  in  the  provisions  and  reservations 
of  the  cession  of  Congress,  my  memory  enables  me  to 
say  nothing  more  than  that  it  was  not  through  inat- 
tention, as  I  believe,  but  the  result  of  compromise. 
But  of  this  the  President,  who  was  in  Congress  when 
the  arrangement  was  settled,  can  give  the  best 
account.  I  had  nothing  to  do  but  execute  a  deed 
according  to  that  arrangement,  made  previous  to 
my  being  a  member.  Colonel  Monroe  being  a  mem- 
ber with  me,  is  more  likely  to  remember  what  passed 
at  that  time ;  but  the  best  resource  for  explanation 
of  everything  we  did,  is  in  our  weekly  corre- 
spondence with  the  Governor  of  Virginia,  which  I 
suppose  is  still  among  the  Executive  records.     We 


i38  Jefferson's  Works 

made  it  a  point  to  write  a  letter  to  hirri  every  week, 
either  jointly,  or  individually  by  turns. 

You  request  me  to  state  the  public  sentiment  of 
our  part  of  the  country  as  to  war  and  the  taxes. 
You  know  I  do  not  go  out  much.  My  own  house 
and  our  court  yard  are  the  only  places  where  I  see 
my  fellow  citizens.  As  far  as  I  can  judge  in  this 
limited  sphere,  I  think  all  regret  that  there  is  cause 
for  war,  but  all  consider  it  as  now  necessary,  and 
would,  I  think,  disapprove  of  a  much  longer  delay 
of  the  declaration  of  it.  As  to  the  taxes,  they  expect 
to  meet  them,  would  be  unwilling  to  have  them  post- 
poned, and  are  only  dissatisfied  with  some  of  the 
subjects  of  taxation;  that  is  to  say  the  stamp  tax 
and  excise.  To  the  former  I  have  not  seen  a  man 
who  is  not  totally  irreconcilable.  If  the  latter  could 
be  collected  from  those  who  buy  to  sell  again,  so  as 
to  prevent  domiciliary  visits  by  the  officers,  I  think 
it  would  be  acceptable,  and  I  am  sure  a  wholesome 
tax.  I  am  persuaded  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
is  mistaken  in  supposing  so  immense  a  deduction 
from  the  duties  on  imports.  We  shall  make  little 
less  to  sell  than  we  do  now,  for  no  one  will  let  his 
hands  be  idle;  and  consequently  we  shall  export 
not  much  less,  and  expect  returns.  Some  part  will 
be  taken  on  the  export  and  some  on  the  import. 
But  taking  into  account  the  advance  of  prices,  that 
revenue  will  not  fall  so  far  short  as  he  thinks;  and 
I  have  no  doubt  might  be  counted  on  to  make  good 
the    entire    suppression    of    the    stamp    tax.     Yet, 


i 


Correspondence  139 

although  a  very  disgusting  pill,  I  think  there  can 
be  no  question  the  people  will  swallow  it,  if  their 
representatives  determine  on  it.  I  get  their  senti- 
ments mostly  from  those  who  are  most  in  the  habit 
of  intercourse  with  the  people  than  I  am  myself. 
Accept  the  assurance  of  my  great  esteem  and  respect. 


TO    THE    PRESIDENT    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 
(JAMES    MADISON). 

Monticello,  April  17,  181 2. 

Dear  Sir, — The  enclosed  papers  will  explain 
themselves.  Their  coming  to  me  is  the  only  thing 
not  sufficiently  explained. 

Your  favor  of  the  3d  came  duly  to  hand.  Although 
something  of  the  kind  had  been  apprehended,  the 
embargo  found  the  farmers  and  planters  only  getting 
their  produce  to  market,  and  selling  as  fast  as  they 
could  get  it  there.  I  think  it  caught  them  in  this 
part  of  the  State  with  one-third  of  their  flour  or 
wheat  and  three-quarters  of  their  tobacco  undis- 
posed of.  If  we  may  suppose  the  rest  of  the  middle 
country  in  the  same  situation,  and  that  the  upper 
and  lower  country  may  be  judged  by  that  as  a 
mean,  these  will  perhaps  be  the  proportions  of 
produce  remaining  in  the  hands  of  the  producers. 
Supposing  the  objects  of  the  government  were 
merely  to  keep  our  vessels  and  men  out  of  harm's 
way,  and  that  there  is  no  idea  that  the  want  of  our 
flour  will  starve  Great  Britain,  the  sale  of  the  remain- 


J4o  Jefferson's  Works 

ing  produce  will  be  rather  desirable,  and  what  would 
be  desired  even  in  war,  and  even  to  our  enemies. 
For  I  am  favorable  to  the  opinion  which  has  been 
urged  by  others,  sometimes  acted  on,  and  now 
partly  so  by  France  and  Great  Britain,  that  com- 
merce, under  certain  restrictions  and  licenses,  may 
be  indulged  between  enemies  mutually  advantageous 
to  the  individuals,  and  not  to  their  injury  as  bellig- 
erents. The  capitulation  of  Amelia  Island,  if  con- 
firmed, might  favor  this  object,  and  at  any  rate  get 
off  our  produce  now  on  hand.  I  think  a  people 
would  go  through  a  war  with  much  less  impatience 
if  they  could  dispose  of  their  produce,  and  that 
unless  a  vent  can  be  provided  for  them,  they  will 
soon  become  querulous  and  clamor  for  peace.  They 
appear  at  present  to  receive  the  embargo  with 
perfect  acquiescence  and  without  a  murmur,  seeing 
the  necessity  of  taking  care  of  our  vessels  and  sea- 
men. Yet  they  would  be  glad  to  dispose  of  their 
produce  in  any  way  not  endangering  them,  as  by 
letting  it  go  from  a  neutral  place  in  British  vessels. 
In  this  way  we  lose  the  carriage  only;  but  better 
that  than  both  carriage  and  cargo.  The  rising  of 
the.  price  of  flour,  since  the  first  panic  is  passed 
away,  indicates  some  prospects  in  the  merchants 
of  disposing  of  it.  Our  wheat  had  greatly  suffered 
by  the  winter,  but  is  as  remarkably  recovered  by 
the  favorable  weather  of  the  spring.  Ever  affec- 
tionately yours. 


Correspondence  141 


TO    JOHN    ADAMS. 

Monticello,  April  20,   1812. 

Dear  Sir, — I  have  it  now  in  my  power  to  send 
you  a  piece  of  homespun  in  return  for  that  I  received 
from  you.  Not  of  the  fine  texture,  or  delicate  char- 
acter of  yours,  or  to  drop  our  metaphor,  not  filled 
as  that  was  with  that  display  of  imagination  which 
constitutes  excellence  in  -Belles  Lettres,  but  a  mere 
sober,  dry  and  formal  piece  of  logic.  Ornari  res 
ipsa  negat.  Yet  you  may  have  enough  left  of  your 
old  taste  for  law  reading,  to  cast  an  eye  over  some 
of  the  questions  it  discusses.  At  any  rate,  accept 
it  as  the  offering  of  esteem  and  friendship. 

You  wish  to  know  something  of  the  Richmond 
and  Wabash  prophets.  Of  Nimrod  Hews  I  never 
heard  before.  Christopher  Macpherson  I  have 
known  for  twenty  years.  He  is  a  man  of  color, 
brought  up  as  a  book-keeper  by  a  merchant,  his 
master,  and  afterwards  enfranchised.  He  had 
understanding  enough  to  post  up  his  ledger  from 
his  journal,  but  not  enough  to  bear  up  against 
hypochondriac  affections,  and  the  gloomy  forebod- 
ings they  inspire.  He  became  crazy,  foggy,  his 
head  always  in  the  clouds,  and  rhapsodizing  what 
neither  himself  nor  any  one  else  could  understand. 
I  think  he  told  me  he  had  visited  you  personally] 
while  you  were  in  the  administration,  and  wrote  * 
you  letters,  which  you  have  probably  forgotten  in 
the  mass  of  the  correspondences  of  that  crazy  class, 


i42  Jefferson's  Works 

of  whose  complaints,  and  terrors,  and  mysticisms, 
the  several  Presidents  have  been  the  regular  deposi- 
tories. Macpherson  was  too  honest  to  be  molested 
by  anybody,  and  too  inoffensive  to  be  a  subject 
for  the  mad-house;  although,  I  believe,  we  are  told 
in  the  old  book,  that  "  every  man  that  is  mad,  and 
maketh  himself  a  prophet,  thou  shouldest  put  him 
in  prison  and  in  the  stocks." 

The  Wabash  prophet  is  a  very  different  character, 
more  rogue  than  fool,  if  to  be  a  rogue  is  not  the 
greatest  of  all  follies.  He  arose  to  notice  while  I 
was  in  the  administration,  and  became,  of  course, 
a  proper  subject  of  inquiry  for  me.  The  inquiry 
was  made  with  diligence.  His  declared  object  was 
the  reformation  of  his  red  brethren,  and  their  return 
to  their  pristine  manner  of  living.  He  pretended 
to  be  in  constant  communication  with  the  Great 
Spirit;  that  he  was  instructed  by  him  to  make 
known  to  the  Indians  that  they  were  created  by 
him  distinct  from  the  whites,  of  different  natures, 
for  different  purposes,  and  placed  under  different 
circumstances,  adapted  to  their  nature  and  destinies; 
that  they  must  return  from  all  the  ways  of  the 
whites  to  the  habits  and  opinions  of  their  forefath- 
ers; they  must  not  eat  the  flesh  of  hogs,  of  bullocks, 
of  sheep,  etc.,  the  deer  and  buffalo  having  been 
created  for  their  food;  they  must  not  make  bread 
of  wheat,  but  of  Indian  corn ;  they  must  not  wear 
linen  nor  woolen,  but  dress  like  their  fathers  in  the 
skins  and  furs  of  animals;    they  must  not  drink 


Correspondence  143 

ardent  spirits,  and  I  do  not  remember  whether  he 
extended  his  inhibitions  to  the  gun  and  gunpowder, 
in  favor  of  the  bow  and  arrow.  I  concluded  from 
all  this,  that  he  was  a  visionary,  enveloped  in  the 
clouds  of  their  antiquities,  and  vainly  endeavoring 
to  lead  back  his  brethren  to  the  fancied  beatitudes 
of  their  golden  age.  I  thought  there  was  little 
danger  of  his  making  many  proselytes  from  the  habits 
and  comfort  they  had  learned  from  the  whites,  to 
the  hardships  and  privations  of  savagism,  and  no 
great  harm  if  he  did.  We  let  him  go  on,  therefore, 
unmolested.  But  his  followers  increased  till  the 
English  thought  him  worth  corruption  and  found  him 
corruptible.  I  suppose  his  views  were  then  changed; 
but  his  proceedings  in  consequence  of  them  were 
after  I  left  the  administration,  and  are,  therefore, 
unknown  to  me;  nor  have  I  ever  been  informed 
what  were  the  particular  acts  on  his  part,  which 
produced  an  actual  commencement  of  hostilities 
on  ours.  I  have  no  doubt,  however,  that  his  sub- 
sequent proceedings  are  but  a  chapter  apart,  like 
that  of  Henry  and  Lord  Liverpool,  in  the  Book  of 
the  Kings  of  England. 

Of  this  mission  of  Henry,  your  son  had  got  wind 
in  the  time  of  the  embargo,  and  communicated  it 
to  me.  But  he  had  learned  nothing  of  the  particu- 
lar agent,  although,  of  his  workings,  the  information 
he  had  obtained  appears  now  to  have  been  correct. 
He  stated  a  particular  which  Henry  has  not  dis- 
tinctly brought  forward,  which  was  that  the  Eastern 


144  Jefferson's  Works 

States  were  not  to  be  required  to  make  a  formal 
act  of  separation  from  the  Union,  and  to  take  a 
part  in  the  war  against  it ;  a  measure  deemed  much 
too  strong  for  their  people;  but  to  declare  them- 
selves in  a  state  of  neutrality,  in  consideration  of 
which  they  were  to  have  peace  and  free  commerce, 
the  lure  most  likely  to  insure  popular  acquiescence. 
Having  no  indications  of  Henry  as  the  intermediate 
in  this  negotiation  of  the  Essex  junto,  suspicions 
fell  on  Pickering,  and  his  nephew  Williams,  in 
London.  If  he  was  wronged  in  this,  the  ground  of 
the  suspicion  is  to  be  found  in  his  known  practices 
and  avowed  opinions,  as  that  of  his  accomplices  in 
the  sameness  of  sentiment  and  of  language  with 
Henry,  and  subsequently  by  the  fluttering  of  the 
wounded  pigeons. 

This  letter,  with  what  it  encloses,  has  given  you 
enough,  I  presume,  of  law  and  the  prophets.  I  will 
only  add  to  it,  therefore,  the  homage  of  my  respects 
to  Mrs.  Adams,  and  to  yourself  the  assurances  of 
affectionate  esteem  and  respect. 


TO    JAMES    MAURY. 

Monticello,  April  25,  181 2. 
My  dear  and  ancient  Friend  and  Classmate, — 
Often  has  my  heart  smote  me  for  delaying  acknowl- 
edgments to  you,  receiving,  as  I  do,  such  frequent 
proofs  of  your  kind  recollection  in  the  transmission 
of  papers  to  me.     But  instead  of  acting  on  the  good 


Correspondence  145 

old  maxim  of  not  putting  off  to  to-morrow  what 
we  can  do  to-day,  we  are  too  apt  to  reverse  it,  and 
not  to  do  to-day  what  we  can  put  off  to  to-morrow. 
But  this  duty  can  be  no  longer  put  off.  To-day 
we  are  at  peace;  to-morrow,  war.  The  curtain  of 
separation  is  drawing  between  us,  and  probably  will 
not  be  withdrawn  till  one,  if  not  both  of  us,  will 
be  at  rest  with  our  fathers.  Let  me  now,  then, 
while  I  may,  renew  to  you  the  declarations  of  my 
warm  attachment,  which  in  no  period  of  life  has 
ever  been  weakened,  and  seems  to  become  stronger 
as  the  remaining  objects  of  our  youthful  affections 
are  fewer. 

Our  two  countries  are  to  be  at  war,  but  not  you 
and  I.  And  why  should  our  two  countries  be  at  war, 
when  by  peace  we  can  be  so  much  more  useful  to 
one  another?  Surely  the  world  will  acquit  our 
government  from  having  sought  it.  Never  before 
has  there  been  an  instance  of  a  nation's  bearing  so 
much  as  we  have  borne.  Two  items  alone  in  our 
catalogue  of  wrongs  will  forever  acquit  us  of  being 
the  aggressors:  the  impressment  of  our  seamen, 
and  the  excluding  us  from  the  ocean.  The  first 
foundations  of  the  social  compact  would  be  broken 
up,  were  we  definitively  to  refuse  to  its  members  the 
protection  of  their  persons  and  property,  while  in 
their  lawful  pursuits.  I  think  the  war  will  not  be 
short,  because  the  object  of  England,  long  obvious, 
is  to  claim  the  ocean  as  her  domain,  and  to  exact 
transit  duties  from  every  vessel  traversing  it.     This 


VOL.   XIII IO 


!46  Jefferson's  Works 

is  the  sum  of  her  orders  of  council,  which  were  only 
a  step  in  this  bold  experiment,  never  meant  to  be 
retracted  if  it  could  be  permanently  maintained. 
And  this  object  must  continue  her  in  war  with  all 
the  world.  To  this  I  see  no  termination,  until  her 
exaggerated  efforts,  so  much  beyond  her  natural 
strength  and  resources,  shall  have  exhausted  her 
to  bankruptcy.  The  approach  of  this  crisis  is,  I 
think,  visible  in  the  departure  of  her  precious  metals, 
and  depreciation  of  her  paper  medium.  We,  who 
have  gone  through  that  operation,  know  its  symp- 
toms, its  course,  and  consequences.  In  England 
they  will  be  more  serious  than  elsewhere,  because 
half  the  wealth  of  her  people  is  now  in  that  medium, 
the  private  revenue  of  her  money-holders,  or  rather 
of  her  paper-holders,  being,  I  believe,  greater  than 
that  of  her  land-holders.  Such  a  proportion  of 
property,  imaginary  and  baseless  as  it  is,  cannot  be 
reduced  to  vapor  but  with  great  explosion.  She 
will  rise  out  of  its  ruins,  however,  because  her  lands, 
her  houses,  her  arts  will  remain,  and  the  greater 
part  of  her  men.  And  these  will  give  her  again 
that  place  among  nations  which  is  proportioned  to 
her  natural  means,  and  which  we  all  wish  her 
to  hold.  We  believe  that  the  just  standing  of  all 
nations  is  the  health  and  security  of  all.  We  con- 
sider the  overwhelming  power  of  England  on  the 
ocean,  and  of  France  on  the  land,  as  destructive  of 
the  prosperity  and  happiness  of  the  world,  and  wish 
both  to  be  reduced  only  to  the  necessity  of  observing 


Correspondence  147 

moral  duties.  We  believe  no  more  in  Bonaparte's 
fighting  merely  for  the  liberty  of  the  seas,  than  in 
Great  Britain's  fighting  for  the  liberties  of  mankind. 
The  object  of  both  is  the  same,  to  draw  to  them- 
selves the  power,  the  wealth  and  the  resources  of 
other  nations.  We  resist  the  enterprises  of  Eng- 
land first,  because  they  first  come  vitally  home  to 
us.  And  our  feelings  repel  the  logic  of  bearing  the 
lash  of  George  the  III.  for  fear  of  that  of  Bonaparte 
at  some  future  day.  When  the  wrongs  of  France 
shall  reach  us  with  equal  effect,  we  shall  resist  them 
also.  But  one  at  a  time  is  enough;  and  having 
offered  a  choice  to  the  champions,  England  first 
takes  up  the  gauntlet. 

The  English  newspapers  suppose  me  the  personal 
enemy  of  their  nation.  I  am  not  so.  I  am  an 
enemy  to  its  injuries,  as  I  am  to  those  of  France.  If 
I  could  permit  myself  to  have  national  partialities, 
and  if  the  conduct  of  England  would  have  permitted 
them  to  be  directed  towards  her,  they  would  have 
been  so.  I  thought  that  in  the  administration  of 
Mr.  Addington,  I  discovered  some  dispositions 
toward  justice,  and  even  friendship  and  respect 
for  us,  and  began  to  pave  the  way  for  cherishing 
these  dispositions,  and  improving  them  into  ties  of 
mutual  good  will.  But  we  had  then  a  federal  min- 
ister there,  whose  dispositions  to  believe  himself, 
and  to  inspire  others  with  a  belief,  in  our  sincerity, 
his  subsequent  conduct  has  brought  into  doubt; 
and  poor   Merry,   the   English   minister   here,   had 


148  Jefferson's  Works 

learned  nothing  of  diplomacy  but  its  suspicions, 
without  head  enough  to  distinguish  when  they  were 
misplaced.  Mr.  Addington  and  Mr.  Fox  passed 
away  too  soon  to  avail  the  two  countries  of  their 
dispositions.  Had  I  been  personally  hostile  to 
England,  and  biased  in  favor  of  either  the  character 
or  views  of  her  great  antagonist,  the  affair  of  the 
Chesapeake  put  war  into  my  hand.  I  had  only  to 
open  it  and  let  havoc  loose.  But  if  ever  I  was 
gratified  with  the  possession  of  power,  and  of  the 
confidence  of  those  who  had  entrusted  me  with  it, 
it  was  on  that  occasion  when  I  was  enabled  to  use 
both  for  the  prevention  of  war,  towards  which  the 
torrent  of  passion  here  was  directed  almost  irresist- 
ibly, and  when  not  another  person  in  the  United 
States,  less  supported  by  authority  and  favor, 
could  have  resisted  it.  And  now  that  a  definitive 
adherence  to  her  impressments  and  orders  of  council 
renders  war  no  longer  avoidable,  my  earnest  prayer 
is  that  our  government  may  enter  into  no  compact 
of  common  cause  with  the  other  belligerent,  but 
keep  us  free  to  make  a  separate  peace,  whenever 
England  will  separately  give  us  peace  and  future 
security.  But  Lord  Liverpool  is  our  witness  that 
this  can  never  be  but  by  her  removal  from  our 
neighborhood. 

I  have  thus,  for  a  moment,  taken  a  range  into  the 
field  of  politics,  to  possess  you  with  the  view  we 
take  of  things  here.  But  in  the  scenes  which  are 
to  ensue,  I  am  to  be  but  a  spectator.     I  have  with- 


Correspondence  1 49 

drawn  myself  from  all  political  intermeddlings, 
to  indulge  the  evening  of  my  life  with  what  have 
been  the  passions  of  every  portion  of  it,  books, 
science,  my  farms,  my  family  and  friends.  To 
these  every  hour  of  the  day  is  now  devoted.  I 
retain  a  good  activity  of  mind,  not  quite  as  much 
of  body,  but  uninterrupted  health.  Still  the  hand 
of  age  is  upon  me.  All  my  old  friends  are  nearly 
gone.  Of  those  in  my  neighborhood,  Mr.  Divers 
and  Mr.  Lindsay  alone  remain.  If  you  could  make 
it  a  par  tie  quarree,  it  would  be  a  comfort  indeed. 
We  would  beguile  our  lingering  hours  with  talking 
over  our  youthful  exploits,  our  hunts  on  Peter's 
mountain,  with  a  long  train  of  et  cetera,  in  addition, 
and  feel,  by  recollection  at  least,  a  momentary  flash 
of  youth.  Reviewing  the  course  of  a  long  and 
sufficiently  successful  life,  I  find  in  no  portion  of  it 
happier  moments  than  those  were.  I  think  the  old 
hulk  in  which  you  are,  is  near  her  wreck,  and  that 
like  a  prudent  rat,  you  should  escape  in  time.  How- 
ever, here,  there,  and  everywhere,  in  peace  or  in 
war,  you  will  have  my  sincere  affections  and  prayers 
for  your  life,  health  and  happiness. 


.    TO    JOHN    RODMAN. 

Monticello,  April  25,   1812. 
Thomas   Jefferson   presents   his   compliments   to 
Mr.  Rodman,  and  his  thanks  for  the  translation  of 
Montgalliard's  work  which  he  has  been  so  kind  as 


r5°  Jefferson's  Works 

to  send  him.  It  certainly  presents  some  new  and 
true  views  of  the  situation  of  England.  It  is  a  sub- 
ject of  deep  regret  to  see  a  great  nation  reduced  from 
an  unexampled  height  of  prosperity  to  an  abyss  of 
ruin,  by  the  long-continued  rule  of  a  single  chief. 
All  we  ought  to  wish  as  to  both  belligerent  parties 
is  to  see  them  forced  to  disgorge  what  their  ravenous 
appetites  have  taken  from  others,  and  reduced  to 
the  necessity  of  observing  moral  duties  in  future. 
If  we  read  with  regret  what  concerns  England,  the 
fulsome  adulation  of  the  author  towards  his  own 
chief  excites  nausea  and  disgust  at  the  state  of 
degradation  to  which  the  mind  of  man  is  reduced 
by  subjection  to  the  inordinate  power  of  another. 
He  salutes  Mr.  Rodman  with  great  respect. 


TO    JOHN    JACOB    ASTOR. 

Monticello,  May  24,  1812. 
Sir, — Your  letter  of  March  14th  lingered  much 
on  the  road,  and  a  long  journey  before  I  could 
answer  it,  has  delayed  its  acknowledgment  till  now. 
I  am  sorry  your  enterprise  for  establishing  a  factory 
on  the  Columbia  river,  and  a  commerce  through 
the  line  of  that  river  and  the  Missouri,  should  meet 
with  the  difficulties  stated  in  your  letter.  I  remem- 
ber well  having  invited  your  proposition  on  that 
subject,  and  encouraged  it  with  the  assurance  of 
every  facility  and  protection  which  the  government 
could   properly   afford.       I    considered   as   a   great 


Correspondence  1 5 L 

public  acquisition  the  commencement  of  a  settle- 
ment on  that  point  of  the  western  coast  of  America, 
and  looked  forward  with  gratification  to  the  time 
when  its  descendants  should  have  spread  themselves 
through  the  whole  length  of  that  coast,  covering 
it  with  free  and  independent  Americans,  unconnected 
with  us  but  by  the  ties  of  blood  and  interest,  and 
employing  like  us  the  rights  of  self-government. 
I  hope  the  obstacles  you  state  are  not  insurmount- 
able ;  that  they  will  not  endanger,  or  even  delay  the 
accomplishment  of  so  great  a  public  purpose.  In 
the  present  state  of  affairs  between  Great  Britain 
and  us,  the  government  is  justly  jealous  of  contra- 
ventions of  those  commercial  restrictions  which 
have  been  deemed  necessary  to  exclude  the  use  of 
British  manufactures  in  these  States,  and  to  promote 
the  establishment  of  similar  ones  among  ourselves. 
The  interests  too  of  the  revenue  require  particular 
watchfulness.  But  in  the  non-importation  of  Brit- 
ish manufactu  es,  and  the  revenue  raised  on  foreign 
goods,  the  legislature  could  only  have  in  view  the 
consumption  of  our  own  citizens,  and  the  revenue 
to  be  levied  on  that.  We  certainly  did  not  mean 
to  interfere  with  the  consumption  of  nations  foreign 
to  us,  as  the  Indians  of  the  Columbia  and  Missouri 
are,  or  to  assume  a  right  of  levying  an  impost  on 
that  consumption;  and  if  the  words  of  the  laws 
take  in  their  supplies  in  either  view,  it  was  probably 
unintentional,  and  because  their  case  not  being 
under  the  contemplation  of  the  legislature,  has  been 


1S2  Jefferson's  Works 

inadvertently  embraced  by  it.  The  question  with 
them  would  be  not  what  manufactures  these  nations 
should  use,  or  what  taxes  they  should  pay  us  on 
them,  but  whether  we  should  give  a  transit  for  them 
through  our  country.  We  have  a  right  to  say  we 
will  not  let  the  British  exercise  that  transit.  But 
it  is  our  interest  as  well  as  a  neighborly  duty  to 
allow  it  when  exercised  by  our  own  citizens  only. 
To  guard  against  any  surreptitious  introduction  of 
British  influence  among  those  nations,  we  may 
justifiably  require  that  no  Englishman  be  permitted 
to  go  with  the  trading  parties,  and  necessary  pre- 
cautions should  also  be  taken  to  prevent  this  cover- 
ing the  contravention  of  our  own  laws  and  views. 
But  these  once  securely  guarded,  our  interest  would 
permit  the  transit  free  of  duty.  And  I  do  presume 
that  if  the  subject  were  fully  presented  to  the  legis- 
lature, they  would  provide  that  the  laws  intended 
to  guard  our  own  concerns  only,  should  not  assume 
the  regulation  of  those  of  foreign  and  independent 
nations ;  still  less  that  they  should  stand  in  the  way 
of  so  interesting  an  object  as  that  of  planting  the 
germ  of  an  American  population  on  the  shores  of 
the  Pacific.  From  meddling  however  with  these 
subjects  it  is  my  duty  as  well  as  my  inclination  to 
abstain.  They  are  in  hands  perfectly  qualified  to 
direct  them,  and  who  knowing  better  the  present 
state  of  tilings,  are  better  able  to  decide  what  is 
right;  and  whatever  they  decide  on  a  full  view  of 
the  case,  I  shall  implicitly  confide  has  been  rightly 

/ 


Correspondence  *53 

decided.     Accept  my  best  wishes  for  your  success, 
and  the  assurances  of  my  great  esteem  and  respect. 


TO    THE    PRESIDENT    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 
(JAMES    MADISON). 

Monticello,  May  30,  1812. 
Dear  Sir, — Another  communication  is  enclosed, 
and  the  letter  of  the  applicant  is  the  only  information 
I  have  of  his  qualifications.  I  barely  remember 
such  a  person  as  the  secretary  of  Mr.  Adams,  and 
messenger  to  the  Senate  while  I  was  of  that  body. 
It  enlarges  the  sphere  of  choice  by  adding  to  it  a 
strong  federalist.  The  triangular  war  must  be  the 
idea  of  the  Anglomen  and  malcontents,  in  other 
words,  the  federalists  and  quids.  Yet  it  would 
reconcile  neither.  It  would  only  change  the  topic 
of  abuse  with  the  former,  and  not  cure  the  mental 
disease  of  the  latter.  It  would  prevent  our  eastern 
capitalists  and  seamen*  from  employment  in  priva- 
teering, take  away  the  only  chance  of  conciliating 
them,  and  keep  them  at  home,  idle,  to  swell  the 
discontents;  it  would  completely  disarm  us  of  the 
most  powerful  weapon  we  can  employ  against  Great 
Britain,  by  shutting  every  port  to  our  prizes,  and 
yet  would  not  add  a  single  vessel  to  their  number; 
it  would  shut  every  market  to  our  agricultural  pro- 
ductions, and  engender  impatience  and  discontent 
with  that  class  which,  in  fact,  composes  the  nation; 
it   would   insulate   us   in   general   negotiations   for 


iS4  Jefferson's  Works 

peace,  making  all  the  parties  our  opposers,  and 
very  indifferent  about  peace  with  us,  if  they  have 
it  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  would  exhibit  a 
solecism  worthy  of  Don  Quixote  only,  that  of  a 
choice  to  fight  two  enemies  at  a  time,  rather  than 
to  take  them  by  succession.  And  the  only  motive 
for  all  this  is  a  sublimated  impartiality,  at  which 
the  world  will  laugh,  and  our  own  people  will  turn 
upon  us  in  mass  as  soon  as  it  is  explained  to  them, 
as  it  will  be  by  the  very  persons  who  are  now  laying 
that  snare.  These  are  the  hasty  views  of  one  who 
rarely  thinks  on  these  subjects.  Your  own  will  be 
better,  and  I  pray  to  them  every  success,  and  to 
yourself  every  felicity. 


TO    THE    PRESIDENT    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 
(JAMES    MADISON). 

Monticello,  June  6,   1812. 

Dear  Sir, — I  have  taken  the  liberty  of  drawing 
the  attention  of  the  Secretary  of  War  to  a  small 
depot  of  military  stores  at  New  London,  and  leave 
the  letter  open  for  your  perusal.  Be  so  good  as  to 
seal  it  before  delivery.  I  really  thought  that  Gen- 
eral Dearborn  had  removed  them  to  Lynchburg, 
undoubtedly  a  safer  and  more  convenient  deposit. 

Our  country  is  the  only  one  I  have  heard  of  which 
has  required  a  draught;  this  proceeded  from  a 
mistake  of  the  colonel,  who  thought  he  could  not 
receive  individual  offers,  but  that  the  whole  quota, 


Correspondence  155 

241,  must  present  themselves  at  once.  Every  one, 
however,  manifests  the  utmost  alacrity;  of  the 
241  there  having  been  but  ten  absentees  at  the  first 
muster  called.  A  further  proof  is  that  Captain  Carr's 
company  of  volunteer  cavalry  being  specifically 
called  for  by  the  Governor,  though  consisting  of  but 
28  when  called  on,  has  got  up  to  50  by  new  engage- 
ments since  their  call  was  known.  The  only  inquiry 
they  make  is  whether  they  are  to  go  to  Canada  or 
Florida?  Not  a  man,  as  far  as  I  have  learned, 
entertains  any  of  those  doubts  which  puzzle  the 
lawyers  of  Congress  and  astonish  common  sense, 
whether  it  is  lawful  for  them  to  pursue  a  retreating 
enemy  across  the  boundary  line  of  the  Union? 

I  hope  Barlow's  correspondence  has  satisfied  all 
our  Quixotes  who  thought  we  should  undertake 
nothing  less  than  to  fight  all  Europe  at  once.  I 
enclose  you  a  letter  from  Dr.  Bruff,  a  mighty  good 
and  very  ingenious  man.  His  method  of  manufac- 
turing bullets  and  shot,  has  the  merit  of  increasing 
their  specific  gravity  greatly,  (being  made  by  com- 
position,) and  rendering  them  as  much  heavier  and 
better  than  the  common  leaden  bullet,  as  that  is 
than  an  iron  one.  It  is  a  pity  he  should  not  have 
the  benefit  of  furnishing  the  public  when  it  would 
be  equally  to  their  benefit  also.     God  bless  you. 


156  Jefferson's  Works 


TO    JOHN    ADAMS. 

Monticello,  June  11,  1812. 

Dear  Sir, — By  our  post  preceding  that  which 
brought  your  letter  of  May  21st,  I  had  received 
one  from  Mr.  Malcolm  on  the  same  subject  with 
yours,  and  by  the  return  of  the  post  had  stated  to 
the  President  my  recollections  of  him.  But  both 
your  letters  were  probably  too  late ;  as  the  appoint- 
ment had  been  already  made,  if  we  may  credit  the 
newspapers. 

You  ask  if  there  is  any  book  that  pretends  to  give 
any  account  of  the  traditions  of  the  Indians,  or 
how  one  can  acquire  an  idea  of  them  ?  Some  scanty 
accounts  of  their  traditions,  but  fuller  of  their  cus- 
toms and  characters,  are  given  us  by  most  of  the 
early  travellers  among  them;  these  you  know  were 
mostly  French.  Lafitan,  among  them,  and  Adair 
an  Englishman,  have  written  on  this  subject;  the 
former  two  volumes,  the  latter  one,  all  in  4to.  But 
unluckily  Lafitan  had  in  his  head  a  preconceived 
theory  on  the  mythology,  manners,  institutions 
and  government  of  the  ancient  nations  of  Europe, 
Asia  and  Africa,  and  seems  to  have  entered  on  those 
of  America  only  to  fit  them  into  the  same  frame, 
and  to  draw  from  them  a  confirmation  of  his  general 
theory.  He  keeps  up  a  perpetual  parallel,  in  all 
those  articles,  between  the  Indians  of  America  and 
the  ancients  of  the  other  quarters  of  the  globe. 
He  selects,  therefore,  all  the  facts  and  adopts  all 


Correspondence  15/ 

the  falsehoods  which  favor  this  theory,  and  very 
gravely  retails  such  absurdities  as  zeal  for  a  theory 
could  alone  swallow.  He  was  a  man-  of  much 
classical  and  scriptural  reading,  and  has  rendered 
his  book  not  unentertaining.  He  resided  five  years 
among  the  Northern  Indians,  as  a  Missionary,  but 
collects  his  matter  much  more  from  the  writings 
of  others,  than  from  his  own  observation. 

Adair  too  had  his  kink.  He  believed  all  the 
Indians  of  America  to  be  descended  from  the  Jews; 
the  same  laws,  usages,  rites  and  ceremonies,  the 
same  sacrifices,  priests,  prophets,  fasts  and  festivals, 
almost  the  same  religion,  and  that  they  all  spoke 
Hebrew.  For,  although  he  writes  particularly  of 
the  Southern  Indians  only,  the  Catawbas,  Creeks, 
Cherokees,  Chickasaws  and  Choctaws,  with  whom 
alone  he  was  personally  acquainted,  yet  he  general- 
izes whatever  he  found  among  them,  and  brings 
himself  to  believe  that  the  hundred  languages  of 
America,  differing  fundamentally  every  one  from 
every  other,  as  much  as  Greek  from  Gothic,  yet  have 
all  one  common  prototype.  He  was  a  trader,  a  man 
of  learning,  a  self-taught  Hebraist,  a  strong  religion- 
ist, and  of  as  sound  a  mind  as  Don  Quixote  in 
whatever  did  not  touch  his  religious  chivalry.  His 
book  contains  a  great  deal  of  real  instruction  on  its 
subject,  only  requiring  the  reader  to  be  constantly 
on  his  guard  against  the  wonderful  obliquities  of  his 
theory. 

The  scope  of  your  inquiry  would  scarcely,  I  sup- 


i  S8  Jefferson's  Works 

pose,  take  in  the  three  folio  volumes  of  Latin  of  De 
Bry.  In  these,  facts  and  fable  are  mingled  together, 
without  regard  to  any  favorite  system.  They  are 
less  suspicious,  therefore,  in  their  complexion,  more 
original  and  authentic,  than  those  of  Lafitan  and 
Adair.  This  is  a  work  of  great  curiosity,  extremely 
rare,  so  as  never  to  be  bought  in  Europe,  but  on 
the  breaking  up  and  selling  some  ancient  library. 
On  one  of  these  occasions  a  bookseller  procured 
me  a  copy,  which,  unless  you  have  one,  is  probably 
the  only  one  in  America. 

You  ask  further,  if  the  Indians  have  any  order  of 
priesthood  among  them,  like  the  Druids,  Bards  or 
Minstrels  of  the  Celtic  nations?  Adair  alone, 
determined  to  see  what  he  wished  to  see  in  every 
object,  metamorphoses  their  Conjurers  into  an  order 
of  priests,  and  describes  their  sorceries  as  if  they 
were  the  great  religious  ceremonies  of  the  nation. 
Lafitan  called  them  by  their  proper  names,  Jongleurs, 
Devins,  Sortileges;  De  Bry  praestigiatores ;  Adair 
himself  sometimes  Magi,  Archimagi,  cunning  men, 
Seers,  rain  makers;  and  the  modern  Indian  inter  . 
preters  call  them  conjurers  and  witches.  They  are 
persons  pretending  to  have  communications  with 
the  devil  and  other  evil  spirits,  to  foretell  future 
events,  bring  down  rain,  find  stolen  goods,  raise  the 
dead,  destroy  some  and  heal  others  by  enchantment, 
lay  spells,  etc.  And  Adair,  without  departing  from 
his  parallel  of  the  Jews  and  Indians,  might  have 
found  their  counterpart  much  more  aptly,  among 


Correspondence  159 

the  soothsayers,  sorcerers  and  wizards  of  the  Jews, 
their  Gannes  and  Gambres,  their  Simon  Magus, 
Witch  of  Endor,  and.  the  young  damsel  whose 
sorceries  disturbed  Paul  so  much ;  instead  of  placing 
them  in  a  line  with  their  high-priest,  their  chief 
priests,  and  their  magnificent  hierarchy  generally. 
In  the  solemn  ceremonies  of  the  Indians,  the 
persons  who  direct  or  officiate,  are  their  chiefs, 
elders  and  warriors,  in  civil  ceremonies  or  in  those 
of  war;  it  is  the  head  of  the  cabin  in  their  private 
or  particular  feasts  or  ceremonies;  and  sometimes 
the  matrons,  as  in  their  corn  feasts.  And  even  here, 
Adair  might  have  kept  up  his  parallel,  with  ennobling 
his  conjurers.  For  the  ancient  patriarchs,  the  Noahs, 
the  Abrahams,  Isaacs  and  Jacobs,  and  even  after 
the  consecration  of  Aaron,  the  Samuels  and  Elijahs, 
and  we  may  say  further,  every  one  for  himself  offered 
sacrifices  on  the  altars.  The  true  line  of  distinction 
seems  to  be,  that  solemn  ceremonies,  whether  public 
or  private,  addressed  to  the  Great  Spirit,  are  con- 
ducted by  the  worthies  of  the  nation,  men  or  matrons, 
while  conjurers  are  resorted  to  only  for  the  invo- 
cation of  evil  spirits.  The  present  state  of  the 
several  Indian  tribes,  without  any  public  order  of 
priests,  is  proof  sufficient  that  they  never  had  such 
an  order.  Their  steady  habits  permit  no  innova- 
tions, not  even  those  which  the  progress  of  science 
offers  to  increase  the  comforts,  enlarge  the  under- 
standing, and  improve  the  morality  of  mankind. 
Indeed,  so  little  idea  have  they  of  a  regular  order  of 


160  Jefferson's  Works 

priests,  that  they  mistake  ours  for  their  conjurers, 
and  call  them  by  that  name. 

So  much  in  answer  to  your  inquiries  concerning 
Indians,  a  people  with  whom,  in  the  early  part  of  my 
life,  I  was  very  familiar,  and  acquired  impressions 
of  attachment  and  commiseration  foi  them  which 
have  never  been  obliterated.  Before  the  Revolution, 
they  were  in  the  habit  of  coming  often  and  in  great 
numbers  to  the  seat  of  government,  where  I  was 
very  much  with  them.  I  knew  much  the  great 
Ontassete,  the  warrior  and  orator  of  the  Cherokees; 
he  was  always  the  guest  of  my  father,  on  his  journeys 
to  and  from  Williamsburg.  I  was  in  his  camp  when 
he  made  his  great  farewell  oration  to  his  people 
the  evening  before  his  departure  for  England.  The 
moon  was  in  full  splendor,  and  to  her  he  seemed  to 
address  himself  in  his  prayers  for  his  own  safety 
on  the  voyage,  and  that  of  his  people  during  his 
absence;  his  sounding  voice,  distinct  articulation, 
animated  action,  and  the  solemn  silence  of  his 
people  at  their  several  fires,  filled  me  with  awTe  and 
veneration,  although  I  did  not  understand  a  word 
he  uttered.  That  nation,  consisting  now  of  about 
2,000  warriors,  and  the  Creeks  of  about  3,000  are 
far  advanced  in  civilization.  They  have  good 
cabins,  enclosed  fields,  large  herds  of  cattle  and 
hogs,  spin  and  weave  their  own  clothes  of  cotton, 
have  smiths  and  other  of  the  most  necessary  trades- 
men, write  and  read,  are  on  the  increase  in  numbers, 
and  a  branch  of  Cherokees  is  now  instituting  a 


Correspondence  1 6 1 

regular  representative  government.  Some  other 
tribes  are  advancing  in  the  same  line.  On  those 
who  have  made  any  progress,  English  seductions 
will  have  no  effect.  But  the  backward  will  yield, 
and  be  thrown  further  back.  Those  will  relapse  into 
barbarism  and  misery,  lose  numbers  by  war  and 
want,  and  we  shall  be  obliged  to  drive  them  with 
the  beasts  of  the  forest  into  the  stony  mountains. 
They  will  be  conquered,  however,  in  Canada.  The 
possession  of  that  country  secures  our  women  and 
children  forever  from  the  tomahawk  and  scalping 
knife,  by  removing  those  who  excite  them;  and 
for  this  possession  orders,  I  presume,  are  issued  by 
this  time ;  taking  for  granted  that  the  doors  of  Con- 
gress will  re-open  with  a  declaration  of  war.  That 
this  may  end  in  indemnity  for  the  past,  security 
for  the  future,  and  complete  emancipation  from 
Anglomany,  Gallomany,  and  all  the  manias  of 
demoralized  Europe,  and  that  you  may  live  in 
health  and  happiness  to  see  all  this,  is  the  sincere 
prayer  of  yours  affectionately. 


TO    ELBRIDGE    GERRY. 

Monticello,  June  II,  1812. 
Dear  Sir,— It  has  given  me  great  pleasure  to 
receive  a  letter  from  you.  It  seems  as  if,  our  ancient 
friends  dying  off,  the  whole  mass  of  the  affections 
of  the  heart  survives  undiminished  to  the  few  who 
remain.     I  think  our  acquaintance  commenced  in 


VOL.  XIII II 


i6a  Jefferson's  Works 

1764,  both  then  just  of  age.  We  happened  to  take 
lodgings  in  the  same  house  in  New  York.  Our  next 
meeting  was  in  the  Congress  of  1775,  and  at  various 
times  afterwards  in  the  exercise  of  that  and  other 
public  functions,  until  your  mission  to  Europe. 
Since  we  have  ceased  to  meet,  we  have  still  thought 
and  acted  together,  "  et  idem  velle,  atque  idem  nolle \ 
ea  demum  amicitia  est."  Of  this  harmony  of  prin- 
ciple, the  papers  you  enclosed  me  are  proof  sufficient. 
I  do  not  condole  with  you  on  your  release  from  your 
government.  The  vote  of  your  opponents  is  the 
most  honorable  mark  by  which  the  soundness  of 
your  conduct  could  be  stamped.  I  claim  the  same 
honorable  testimonial.  There  was  but  a  single  act 
of  my  whole  administration  of  which  that  party 
approved.  That  was  the  proclamation  on  the 
attack  of  the  Chesapeake.  And  when  I  found  they 
approved  of  it,  I  confess  I  began  strongly  to  appre- 
hend I  had  done  wrong,  and  to  exclaim  with  the 
Psalmist,  ''Lord,  what  have  I  done  that  the  wicked 
should  praise  me!" 

What,  then,  does  this  English  faction  with  you 
mean?  Their  newspapers  say  rebellion,  and  that 
they  will  not  remain  united  with  us  unless  we  will 
permit  them  to  govern  the  majority.  If  this  be 
their  purpose,  their  anti-republican  spirit,  it  ought 
to  be  met  at  once.  But  a  government  like  ours 
should  be  slow  in  belie* ving  this,  should  put  forth 
its  whole  might  when  necessary  to  suppress  it,  and 
promptly  return  to  the  paths  of  reconciliation.     The 


Correspondence  163 

extent  of  our  country  secures  it,  I  hope,  from  the 
vindictive  passions  of  the  petty  incorporations  of 
Greece.  I  rather  suspect  that  the  principal  office 
of  the  other  seventeen  States  will  be  to  moderate 
and  restrain  the  local  excitement  of  our  friends  with 
you,  when  they  (with  the  aid  of  their  brethren  of 
the  other  States,  if  they  need  it)  shall  have  brought 
the  rebellious  to  theii  feet.  They  count  on  British 
aid.  But  what  can  that  avail  them  by  land?  They 
would  separate  from  their  friends,  who  alone  furnish 
employment  for  their  navigation,  to  unite  with  their 
only  rival  for  that  employment.  When  interdicted 
the  harbors  of  their  quondam  brethren,  they  will  go, 
I  suppose,  to  ask  a  share  in  the  carrying  trade  of 
their  rivals,  and  a  dispensation  with  their  navigation 
act.  They  think  they  will  be  happier  in  an  associa- 
tion under  the  rulers  of  Ireland,  the  East  and  West 
Indies,  than  in  an  independent  government,  where 
they  are  obliged  to  put  up  with  their  proportional 
share  only  in  the  direction  of  its  affairs.  But  I  trust 
that  such  perverseness  will  not  be  that  of  the  honest 
and  well-meaning  mass  of  the  federalists  of  Massa- 
chusetts ;  and  that  when  the  questions  of  separation 
and  rebellion  shall  be  nakedly  proposed  to  them,  the 
Gores  and  the  Pickerings  will  find  their  levees 
crowded  with  silk  stocking  gentry,  but  no  yeomanry; 
an  army  of  officers  without  soldiers.  I  hope,  then, 
all  will  still  end  well;  the  Anglomen  will  consent  to 
make  peace  with  their  bread  and  butter,  and  you 
and  I  shall  sink  to  rest,  without  having  been  actors 
or  spectators  in  another  civil  war. 


l64  Jefferson's  Works 

How  many  children  have  you?  You  beat  me,  I 
expect,  in  that  count,  but  I  you  in  that  of  our  grand- 
children. We  have  not  timed  these  things  well 
together,  or  we  migh  have  begun  a  re-alliance 
between  Massachusetts  and  the  Old  Dominion, 
faithful  companions  in  the  War  of  Independence, 
peculiarly  tallied  in  interests,  by  each  wanting 
exactly  what  the  other  has  to  spare;  and  estranged 
to  each  other  in  latter  times,  only  by  the  practices 
of  a  third  nation,  the  common  enemy  of  both.  Let 
us  live  only  to  see  this  re-union,  and  I  will  say  with 
old  Simeon,  "Lord,  now  lettest  thou  thy  servant 
depart  in  peace,  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  thy  salva- 
tion." In  that  peace  may  you  long  remain,  my 
friend,  and  depart  only  in  the  fulness  of  years,  all 
passed  in  health  and  prosperity.     God  bless  you. 

P.  S.  June  13.  I  did  not  condole  with  you  on 
the  reprobation  of  your  opponents,  because  it  proved 
your  orthodoxy.  Yesterday's  post  brought  me  the 
resolution  of  the  republicans  of  Congress,  to  propose 
you  as  Vice-President.  On  this  I  sincerely  congratu- 
late you.  It  is  a  stamp  of  double  proof.  It  is  a 
notification  to  the  factionaries  that  their  nay  is  the 
yea  of  truth,  and  its  best  test.  We  shall  be  almost 
within  striking  distance  of  each  other.  Who  knows 
but  you  may  fill  up  some  short  recess  of  Congress 
with  a  visit  to  Monticello,  where  a  numerous  family 
will  hail  you  with  a  hearty  country  welcome. 


Correspondence  165 

TO    JUDGE    JOHN    TYLER. 

Monticello,  June  17,  1812. 
Dear  Sir,—  ******* 
On  the  other  subject  of  your  letter,  the  application  of 
the  common  law  to  our  present  situation,  I  deride 
with  you  the  ordinary  doctrine,  that  we  brought  with 
us  from  England  the  common  law  rights.  This  narrow 
notion  was  a  favorite  in  the  first  moment  of  rallying 
to  our  rights  against  Great  Britain.  But  it  was  that 
of  men  who  felt  their  rights  before  they  had  thought 
of  their  explanation.  The  truth  is,  that  we  brought 
with  us  the  rights  of  men;  of  expatriated  men  On 
our  arrival  here,  the  question  would  at  once  arise, 
by  what  law  will  we  govern  ourselves?  The  resolu- 
tion seems  to  have  been,  by  that  system,  with  which 
we  are  familiar,  to  be  altered  by  ourselves  occasion- 
ally, and  adapted  to  our  new  situation.  The  proofs 
of  this  resolution  are  to  be  found  in  the  form  of  the 
oaths  of  the  judges,  1.  Hening's  Stat.  169.  187;  of 
the  Governor,  ib.  504;  in  the  act  for  a  provisional 
government,  ib.  372 ;  in  the  preamble  to  the  laws  of 
1 66 1-2;  the  uniform  current  of  opinions  and  deci- 
sions, and  in  the  general  recognition  of  all  our  stat- 
utes, framed  on  that  basis.  But  the  state  of  the 
English  law  at  the  date  of  our  emigration,  consti- 
tuted the  system  adopted  here.  We  may  doubt, 
therefore,  the  propriety  of  quoting  in  our  courts 
English  authorities  subsequent  to  that  adoption; 
still  more,  the  admission  of  authorities  posterior  to 


166  Jefferson's  Works 

the  Declaration  of  Independence,  or  rather  to  the 
accession  of  that  King,  whose  reign,  ab  initio,  was 
the  very  tissue  of  wrongs  which  rendered  the  Decla- 
ration at  length  necessary.  The  reason  or  it  had 
inception  at  least  as  far  back  as  the  commencement 
of  his  reign.  This  relation  to  the  beginning  of  his 
reign,  would  add  the  advantage  of  getting  us  rid  of 
all  Mansfield's  innovations,  or  civilizations  of  the 
common  law.  For  however  I  admit  the  superiority 
of  the  civil  over  the  common  law  code,  as  a  system 
of  perfect  justice,  yet  an  incorporation  of  the  two 
would  be  like  Nebuchadnezzar's  image  of  metals  and 
clay,  a  thing  without  cohesion  of  parts.  The  only 
natural  improvement  of  the  common  law,  is  through 
its  homogeneous  ally,  the  chancery,  in  which  new 
principles  are  to  be  examined,  concocted  and  digested. 
But  when,  by  repeated  decisions  and  modifications, 
they  are  rendered  pure  and  certain,  they  should  be 
transferred  by  statute  to  the  courts  of  common  law, 
and  placed  within  the  pale  of  juries.  The  exclusion 
from  the  courts  of  the  malign  influence  of  all  authori- 
ties after  the  Georgium  sidus  became  ascendant, 
would  uncanonize  Blackstone,  whose  book,  although 
the  most  elegant  and  best  digested  of  our  law  cata- 
logue, has  been  perverted  more  than  all  others,  to 
the  degeneracy  of  legal  science.  A  student  finds 
there  a  smattering  of  everything,  and  his  indolence 
easily  persuades  him  that  if  he  understands  that 
book,  he  is  master  of  the  whole  body  of  the  law. 
The  distinction  between  these,  and  those  who  have 


Correspondence  167 

drawn  their  stores  from  the  deep  and  rich  mines  of 
Coke  and  Littleton,  seems  well  understood  even  by 
the  unlettered  common  people,  who  apply  the  appel- 
lation of  Blackstone  lawyers  to  these  ephemeral 
insects  of  the  law. 

Whether  we  should  undertake  to  reduce  the  com- 
mon law,  our  own,  and  so  much  of  the  English  stat- 
utes as  we  have  adopted,  to  a  text,  is  a  question  of 
transcendent  difficulty.  It  was  discussed  at  the  first 
meeting  of  the  committee  of  the  revised  code,  in  1776, 
and  decided  in  the  negative,  by  the  opinions  of 
Wythe,  Mason  and  myself,  against  Pendleton  and 
Thomas  Lee.  Pendleton  proposed  to  take  Black- 
stone  for  that  text,  only  purging  him  of  what  was 
inapplicable  or  unsuitable  to  us.  In  that  case,  the 
meaning  of  every  word  of  Blackstone  would  have 
become  a  source  of  litigation,  until  it  had  been  set- 
tled by  repeated  legal  decisions.  And  to  come  at 
that  meaning,  we  should  have  had  produced,  on  all 
occasions,  that  very  pile  of  authorities  from  which 
it  would  be  said  he  drew  his  conclusion,  and  which, 
of  course,  would  explain  it,  and  the  terms  in  which  it 
is  couched.  Thus  we  should  have  retained  the  same 
chaos  of  law-lore  from  which  we  wished  to  be  eman- 
cipated, added  to  the  evils  of  the  uncertainty  which 
a  new  text  and  new  phrases  would  have  generated. 
An  example  of  this  may  be  found  in  the  old  statutes, 
and  commentaries  on  them,  in  Coke's  second  insti- 
tute, but  more  remarkably  in  the  institute  of  Jus- 
tinian, and  the  vast  masses  explanatory  or  supple- 


1 68  Jefferson's  Works 

mentary  of  that  which  fill  the  libraries  of  the  civilians. 
We  were  deterred  from  the  attempt  by  these  consid- 
erations, added  to  which,  the  bustle  of  the  times  did 
not  admit  leisure  for  such  an  undertaking. 

Your  request  of  my  opinion  on  this  subject  has 
given  you  the  trouble  of  these  observations.  If  your 
firmer  mind  in  encountering  difficulties  would  have 
added  your  vote  to  the  minority  of  the  committee, 
you  would  have  had  on  your  side  one  of  the  greatest 
men  of  our  age,  and  like  him,  have  detracted  nothing 
from  the  sentiments  of  esteem  and  respect  which  I 
bore  to  him,  and  tender  with  sincerity  the  assurance 
of  to  yourself. 


TO  GENERAL  THADDEUS  KOSCIUSKO. 

Monticello,  June  28,  1812. 
"  Nous  voila  done,  mon  cher  ami,  en  guerre  avec 
l'Angleterre. ' '  This  was  declared  on  the  1 8th  instant, 
thirty  years  after  the  signature  of  our  peace  in  1782. 
Within  these  thirty  years  what  a  vast  course  of 
growth  and  prosperity  we  have  had!  It  is  not  ten 
years  since  Great  Britain  began  a  series  of  insults  and 
injuries  which  would  have  been  met  with  war  in  the 
threshold  by  any  European  power.  This  course  has 
been  unremittingly  followed  up  by  increasing  wrongs, 
with  glimmerings  indeed  of  peaceable  redress,  just 
sufficient  to  keep  us  quiet,  till  she  has  had  the  impu- 
dence at  length  to  extinguish  even  these  glimmerings 
by  open  avowal.     This  would  not  have  been  borne 


Correspondence  1 69 

so  long,  but  that  France  has  kept  pace  with  England 
in  iniquity  of  principle,  although  not  in  the  power  of 
inflicting  wrongs  on  us.  The  difficulty  of  selecting 
a  foe  between  them  has  spared  us  many  years  of  war, 
and  enabled  us  to  enter  into  it  with  less  debt,  more 
strength  and  preparation.  Our  present  enemy  will 
have  the  sea  to  herself,  while  we  shall  be  equally  pre- 
dominant at  land,  and  shall  strip  her  of  all  her  pos- 
sessions on  this  continent.  She  may  burn  New  York, 
indeed,  by  her  ships  and  congreve  rockets,  in  which 
case  we  must  burn  the  city  of  London  by  hired  incen- 
diaries, of  which  her  starving  manufacturers  will 
furnish  abundance.  A  people  in  such  desperation 
as  to  demand  of  their  government  ant  parcem,  ant 
furcam,  either  bread  or  the  gallows,  will  not  reject 
the  same  alternative  when  offered  by  a  foreign  hand. 
Hunger  will  make  them  brave  every  risk  for  bread. 
The  partisans  of  England  here  have  endeavored 
much*  to  goad  us  into  the  folly  of  choosing  the  ocean 
instead  of  the  land,  for  the  theatre  of  war.  That 
would  be  to  meet  their  strength  with  our  own  weak- 
ness, instead  of  their  weakness  with  our  strength.  I 
hope  we  shall  confine  ourselves  to  the  conquest  of 
their  possessions,  and  defence  of  our  harbors,  leaving 
the  war  on  the  ocean  to  our  privateers.  These  will 
immediately  swarm  in  every  sea,  and  do  more  injury 
to  British  commerce  than  the  regular  fleets  of  all 
Europe  would  do.  The  government  of  France  may 
discontinue  their  license  trade.  Our  privateers  will 
furnish  them  much  more  abundantly  with  colonial 


i7°  Jefferson's  Works 

produce,  and  whatever  the  license  trade  has  given 
them.  Some  have  apprehended  we  should  be  over- 
whelmed by  the  new  improvements  of  war,  which 
have  not  yet  reached  us.  But  the  British  possess 
them  very  imperfectly,  and  what  are  these  improve- 
ments? Chiefly  in  the  management  of  artillery,  of 
which  our  country  admits  little  use.  We  have  noth- 
ing to  fear  from  their  armies,  and  shall  put  nothing 
in  prize  to  their  fleets.  Upon  the  whole,  I  have 
known  no  war  entered  into  under  more  favorable 
auspices. 

Our  manufacturers  are  now  very  nearly  on  a  foot- 
ing with  those  of  England.  She  has  not  a  single  im- 
provement which  we  do  not  possess,  and  many  of 
them  better  adapted  by  ourselves  to  our  ordinary 
use.  We  have  reduced  the  large  and  expensive 
machinery  for  most  things  to  the  compass  of  a  pri- 
vate family,  and  every  family  of  any  size  is  now  get- 
ting machines  on  a  small  scale  for  their  household 
purposes.  Quoting  myself  as  an  example,  and  I  am 
much  behind  many  others  in  this  business,  my  house- 
hold manufactures  are  just  getting  into  operation  on 
the  scale  of  a  carding  machine  costing  $60  only, 
which  may  be  worked  by  a  girl  of  twelve  years  old, 
a  spinning  machine,  which  may  be  made  for  $10, 
carrying  6  spindles  for  wool,  to  be  worked  by  a  girl 
also,  another  which  can  be  made  for  $25,  carrying 
1 2  spindles  for  cotton,  and  a  loom,  with  a  flying  shut- 
tle, weaving  its  twenty  yards  a  day.  I  need  2,000 
yards  of  linen,  cotton  and  woolen  yearly,  to  clothe 


Correspondence  1 7  * 

my  family,  which  this  machinery,  costing  $150  only, 
and  worked  by  two  women  and  two  girls,  will  more 
than  furnish.  For  fine  goods  there  are  numerous 
establishments  at  work  in  the  large  cities,  and  many 
more  daily  growing  up ;  and  of  merinos  we  have  some 
thousands,  and  these  multiplying  fast.  We  consider 
a  sheep  for  every  person  as  sufficient  for  their  woolen 
clothing,  and  this  State  and  all  to  the  north  have 
fully  that,  and  those  to  the  south  and  west  will  soon 
be  up  to  it.  In  other  articles  we  are  equally  ad- 
vanced, so  that  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that, 
come  peace  when  it  will,  we  shall  never  again  go  to 
England  for  a  shilling  where  we  have  gone  for  a 
dollar's  'worth.  Instead  of  applying  to  her  manu- 
facturers there,  they  must  starve  or  come  here  to  be 
employed.  I  give  you  these  details  of  peaceable 
operations,  because  they  are  within  my  present 
sphere.  Those  of  war  are  in  better  hands,  who  know 
how  to  keep  their  own  secrets.  Because,  too, 
although  a  soldier  yourself,  I  am  sure  you  contem- 
plate the  peaceable  employment  of  man  in  the 
improvement  of  his  condition,  with  more  pleasure 
than  his  murders,  rapine  and  devastations. 

Mr.  Barnes,  some  time  ago,  forwarded  you  a  bill 
of  exchange  for  5,500  francs,  of  which  the  enclosed 
is  a  duplicate.  Apprehending  that  a  war  with  Eng- 
land would  subject  the  remittances  to  you  to  more 
casualties,  I  proposed  to  Mr.  Morson,  of  Bordeaux, 
to  become  the  intermediate  for  making  remittances 
to  you,  which  he  readily  acceded  to  on  liberal  ideas 


i72  Jeff ersorTs  Works 

arising  from  his  personal  esteem  for  you,  and  his 
desire  to  be  useful  to  you.  If  you  approve  of  this 
medium  I  am  in  hopes  it  will  shield  you  from  the 
effect  of  the  accidents  to  which  the  increased  dangers 
of  the  seas  may  give  birth.  It  would  give  me  great 
pleasure  to  hear  from  you  oftener.  I  feel  great  in- 
terest in  your  health  and  happiness.  I  know  your 
feelings  on  the  present  state  of  the  world,  and  hope 
they  will  be  cheered  by  the  successful  course  of  our 
war,  and  the  addition  of  Canada  to  our  confederacy. 
The  infamous  intrigues  of  Great  Britain  to  destroy 
our  government  (of  which  Henry's  is  but  one  sam- 
ple), and  with  the  Indians  to  tomahawk  our  women 
and  children,  prove  that  the  cession  of  Canada,  their 
fulcrum  for  these  Machiavelian  levers,  must  be  a 
sine  qua  non  at  a  treaty  of  peace.  God  bless  you, 
and  give  you  to  see  all  these  things,  and  many  and 
long  years  of  health  and  happiness. 


TO    THE    PRESIDENT    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 
(JAMES    MADISON). 

Monticello,  June  29,   181 2. 

Dear  Sir, — I  duly  received  your  favor  of  the  2  2d 
covering  the  declaration  of  war.  It  is  entirely  popu- 
lar here,  the  only  opinion  being  that  it  should  have 
been  issued  the  moment  the  season  admitted  the 
militia  to  enter  Canada.  *  *  *  *  *  fo  con- 
tinue the  war  popular,   two  things  are  necessary 

mainly;    j.  To  stop  Indian  barbarities,    The  eon- 


Correspondence  173 

quest  of  Canada  will  do  this.  2.  To  furnish  markets 
for  our  produce,  say  indeed  for  our  flour,  for  tobacco 
is  already  given  up,  and  seemingly  without  reluc- 
tance. The  great  profits  of  the  wheat  crop  have 
allured  every  one  to  it;  and  never  was  such  a  crop 
on  the  ground  as  that  which  we  generally  begin  to 
cut  this  day.  It  would  be  mortifying  to  the  farmer 
to  see  such  an  one  rot  in  his  barn.  It  would  soon 
sicken  him  to  war.  Nor  can  this  be  a  matter  of 
wonder  or  of  blame  on  him.  Ours  is  the  only  coun- 
try on  earth  where  war  is  an  instantaneous  and  total 
suspension  of  all  the  objects  of  his  industry  and  sup- 
port. For  carrying  our  produce  to  foreign  markets 
our  own  ships,  neutral  ships,  and  even  enemy  ships 
under  neutral  flag,  which  I  would  wink  at,  will  prob- 
ably suffice.  But  the  coasting  trade  is  of  double 
importance,  because  both  seller  and  buyer  are  dis- 
appointed, and  both  are  our  own  citizens.  You  will 
remember  that  in  this  trade  our  greatest  distress  in 
the  last  war  was  produced  by  our  own  pilot  boats 
taken  by  the  British  and  kept  as  tenders  to  their 
larger  vessels.  These  being  the  swiftest  vessels  on 
the  ocean,  they  took  them  and  selected  the  swiftest 
from  the  whole  mass.  Filled  with  men  they  scoured 
everything  along  shore,  and  completely  cut  up  that 
coasting  business  which  might  otherwise  have  been 
carried  on  within  the  range  of  vessels  of  force  and 
draught.  Why  should  not  we  then  line  our  coast 
with  vessels  of  pilot-boat  construction,  filled  with 
men,  armed  with    carronades,   and   only  so  much 


1 74  Jefferson's  Works 

larger  as  to  assure  the  mastery  of  the  pilot  boat? 
The  British  cannot  counter- work  us  by  building 
similar  ones,  because,  the  fact  is,  however  unaccount- 
able, that  our  builders  alone  understand  that  con- 
struction. It  is  on  our  own  pilot  boats  the  British 
will  depend,  which  our  larger  vessels  may  thus  retake. 
These,  however,  are  the  ideas  of  a  landsman  only, 
Mr.  Hamilton's  judgment  will  test  their  soundness. 

Our  militia  are  much  afraid  of  being  called  to  Nor- 
folk at  this  season.  They  all  declare  a  preference  of 
a  march  to  Canada.  I  trust  however  that  Governor 
Barbour  will  attend  to  circumstances,  and  so  appor- 
tion the  service  among  the  counties,  that  those  accli- 
mated by  birth  or  residence  may  perform  the  summer 
tour,  and  the  winter  service  be  allotted  to  the  upper 
counties. 

I  trouble  you  with  a  letter  for  General  Kosciusko. 
It  covers  a  bill  of  exchange  from  Mr.  Barnes  for  him, 
and  is  therefore  of  great  importance  to  him.  Hoping 
you  will  have  the  goodness  so  far  to  befriend  the 
General  as  to  give  it  your  safest  conveyance,  I  com- 
mit it  to  you,  with  the  assurance  of  my  sincere 
affections. 


TO   NATHANIEL   GREENE. 

Monticello,  July  s,  1812. 
Sir, — Your  favor  of  May  19th,  from  New  Orleans 
is  just  now  received.     I  have  no  doubt  that  the  in- 
formation you  will  present  to  your  countrymen  on 


Ceniespondence  175 

the  subject  o.  the  Asiatic  countries  into  wmch  you 
have  travelled,  will  be  acceptable  as  sources  both  of 
amusement  and  instruction;  and  the  more  so,  as  the 
observations  of  an  American  will  be  more  likely  to 
present  what  are  peculiarities  to  us,  than  those  of  , 
any  foreigner  on  the  same  countries.  In  reading 
the  travels  of  a  Frenchman  through  the  United  States 
what  he  remarks  as  peculiarities  in  us,  prove  to  us 
the  contrary  peculiarities  of  the  French.  We  have 
the  accounts  of  Barbary  from  European  and  Amer- 
ican travellers.  It  would  be  more  amusing  if  Melli 
Melli  would  give  us  his  observations  on  the  United 
States.  If,  with  the  foibles  and  follies  of  the  Hindoos, 
so  justly  pointed  out  to  us  by  yourselves  and  other 
travellers,  we  could  compare  the  contrast  of  those 
which  an  Hindoo  traveller  would  imagine  he  found 
among  us,  it  might  enlarge  our  instruction.  It  would 
be  curious  to  see  what  parallel  among  us  he  would 
select  for  his  Veeshni.  What  you  will  have  seen  in 
your  western  tour  will  also  instruct  many  who  often 
know  least  of  things  nearest  home. 

The  charitable  institution  you  have  proposed  to 
the  city  of  New  Orleans  would  undoubtedly  be  valu- 
able, and  all  such  are  better  managed  by  those  locally 
connected  with  them.  The  great  wealth  of  that  city 
will  insure  its  support,  and  the  names  subscribed  to 
it  will  give  it  success.  For  a  private  individual,  a 
thousand  miles  distant,  to  imagine  that  his  name 
could  add  anything  to  what  exhibits  already  the 
patronage  of  the  highest  authorities  of  the  State, 


176  Jefferson's  Works 

would  be  great  presumption.  It  will  certainly  engage 
my  best  wishes,  to  which  permit  me  to  add  for 
yourself  the  assurances  of  my  respect. 


TO    THOMAS    COOPER. 

MONTICELLO,    July    10,    l8l2. 

Dear  Sir, — I  received  by  your  last  post  through 
Mr.  Hall,  of  Baltimore,  a  copy  of  your  introductory 
lecture  to  a  course  of  chemistry,  for  which  accept  my 
thanks.  I  have  just  entered  on  the  reading  of  it, 
and  perceive  that  I  have  a  feast  before  me.  I  dis- 
cover from  an  error  of  the  binder,  that  my  copy  has 
duplicates  of  pages  122,  123,  126,  127,  and  wants 
altogether,  pages  121,  124,  125,  128,  and  foreseeing 
that  every  page  will  be  a  real  loss,  and  that  the  book 
has  been  printed  at  Carlisle,  I  will  request  your  direc- 
tions to  the  printer  to  enclose  those  four  pages  under 
cover  to  me  at  this  place,  near  Milton.  You  know 
the  just  esteem  which  attached  itself  to  Dr.  Frank- 
lin's science,  because  he  always  endeavored  to  direct 
it  to  something  useful  in  private  life.  The  chemists 
have  not  been  attentive  enough  to  this.  I  have 
wished  to  see  their  science  applied  to  domestic 
objects,  to  malting,  for  instance,  brewing,  making 
cider,  to  fermentation  and  distillation  generally,  to 
the  making  of  bread,  butter,  cheese,  soap,  to  the 
incubation  of  eggs,  etc.  And  I  am  happy  to  observe 
some  of  these  titles  in  the  syllabus  of  your  lecture. 
I  hope  you  will  make  the  chemistry  of  these  subjects 


Correspondence  1 77 

intelligible  to  our  good  house- wives.  Glancing  over 
the  pages  of  your  book,  the  last  one  caught  my  atten- 
tion, where  you  recommend  to  students  the  books 
on  metaphysics.  Not  seeing  De  Tutt  Tracy's  name 
there,  I  suspected  you  might  not  have  seen  his  work. 
His  first  volume  on  Ideology  appeared  in  1800.  I 
happen  to  have  a  duplicate  of  this,  and  will  send  it 
to  you.  Since  that,  has  appeared  his  second  volume 
on  grammar  and  his  third  on  logic.  They  are  con- 
sidered as  holding  the  most  eminent  station  in  that 
line;  and  considering  with  you  that  a  course  of 
anatomy  lays  the  best  foundation  for  understanding 
these  subjects,  Tracy  should  be  preceded  by  a  mature 
study  of  the  most  profound  of  all  human  composi- 
tions, Cabanis's  "  Rapports  du  Physique  et  du  moral 
de  l'homme." 

In  return  for  the  many  richer  favors  received  from 
you,  I  send  you  my  little  tract  on  the  batture  of  New 
Orleans,  and  Livingston's  claim  to  it.  I  was  at  a 
loss  where  to  get  it  printed,  and  confided  it  to  the 
editor  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  re-printed  at  New 
York.  But  he  has  not  done  it  immaculately.  Although 
there  are  typographical  errors  in  your  lecture,  I  won- 
der to  see  so  difficult  a  work  so  well  done  at  Carlisle. 
I  am  making  a  fair  copy  of  the  catalogue  of  my 
library,  which  I  mean  to  have  printed  merely  for  the 
use  of  the  library.  It  will  require  correct  orthog- 
raphy in  so  many  languages,  that  I  hardly  know 
where  I  can  get  it  done.  Have  you  read  the  Review 
of  Montesquieu,  printed  by  Duane?     I  hope  it  will 

VOL.   XIII 12 


1 78  Jefferson^  Works 

become  the  elementary  book  of  the  youth  at  all  our 
colleges.  Such  a  reduction  of  Montesquieu  to  his 
true  value  had  been  long  wanting  in  political  study. 
Accept  the  assurance  of  my  great  and  constant 
esteem  and  respect. 


TO    B.    H.    LATROBE. 

MONTICELLO,    July    12,    18 1 2. 

Dear  Sir, — Of  all  the  faculties  of  the  human  mind 
that  of  memory  is  the  first  which  suffers  decay  from 
age.  Of  the  commencement  of  this  decay,  I  was 
fully  sensible  while  I  lived  in  Washington,  and  it 
was  my  earliest  monitor  to  retire  from  public  busi- 
ness. It  has  often  since  been  the  source  of  great 
regret  when  applied  to  by  others  to  attest  trans- 
actions in  which  I  had  been  agent,  to  find  that 
they  had  entirely  vanished  from  my  memory.  In 
no  case  has  it  given  me  more  concern  than  in  that 
which  is  the  subject  of  your  letter  of  the  2d  instant: 
the  supper  given  in  1807  to  the  workmen  on  the  Capi- 
tol. Of  this  supper  I  have  not  the  smallest  recollec- 
tion. If  it  ever  was  mentioned  to  me,  not  a  vestige 
of  it  now  remains  in  my  mind.  This  failure  of  my 
memory  is  no  proof  the  thing  did  not  happen,  but 
only  takes  from  it  the  support  of  my  testimony, 
which  cannot  be  given  for  what  is  obliterated  from 
it.  I  have  looked  among  my  papers  to  see  if  they 
furnish  any  trace  of  the  matter,  but  I  find  none,  and 
must  therefore   acquiesce  in  my  incompetence   to 


Correspondence  179 

administer  to  truth  on  this  occasion.  I  am  sorry 
to  learn  that  Congress  has  relinquished  the  benefit 
of  the  engagements  of  Andrei  &  Franzoni,  on  the 
sculpture  of  the  Capitol.  They  are  artists  of  a  grade 
far  above  what  we  can  expect  to  get  again.  I  still 
hope  they  will  continue  to  work  on  the  basis  of  the 
appropriation  made,  and  as  far  as  that  will  go;  so 
that  what  is  done  will  be  well  done;  and  perhaps  a 
more  favorable  moment  may  still  preserve  them  to 
us.  With  respect  to  yourself,  the  little  disquietudes 
from  individuals  not  chosen  for  their  taste  in  works 
of  art,  will  be  sunk  into  oblivion,  while  the  Repre- 
sentatives' chamber  will  remain  a  durable  monu- 
ment of  your  talents  as  an  architect.  I  say  nothing 
of  the  Senate  room,  because  I  have  never  seen  it.  I 
shall  live  in  the  hope  that  the  day  will  come  when  an 
opportunity  will  be  given  you  of  finishing  the  middle 
building  in  a  style  worthy  of  the  two  wings,  and 
worthy  of  the  first  temple  dedicated  to  the  sove- 
reignty of  the  people,  embellishing  with  Athenian 
taste  the  course  of  a  nation  looking  far  beyond  the 
range  of  Athenian  destinies.  In  every  situation, 
public  or  private,  be  assured  of  my  sincere  wishes 
for  your  prosperity  and  happiness,  and  of  the  con- 
tinuance of  my  esteem  and  respect. 


1 80  Jeff  ersdri!sr  Works 

TO    COLONEL   WILLIAM   DUANE. 

MONTICELLO,    AugUSt   4,    l8l2. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  the  17th  ultimo  came 
duly  to  hand,  and  I  have  to  thank  you  for  the  mili- 
tary manuals  you  were  so  kind  as  to  send  me.  This 
is  the  sort  of  book  most  needed  in  our  country,  where 
even  the  elements  of  tactics  are  unknown.  The 
young  have  never  seen  service,  and  the  old  are  past 
it,  and  of  those  among  them  who  are  not  super- 
annuated themselves,  their  science  is  become  so.  I 
see,  as  you  do,  the  difficulties  and  defects  we  have 
to  encounter  in  war,  and  should  expect  disasters  if 
we  had  an  enemy  on  land  capable  of  inflicting  them. 
But  the  weakness  of  our  enemy  there  will  make  our 
first  errors  innocent,  and  the  seeds  of  genius  which 
nature  sows  with  even  hand  through  every  age  and 
country,  and  which  need  only  soil  and  season  to 
germinate,  will  develop  themselves  among  our  mili- 
tary men.  Some  of  them  will  become  prominent, 
and  seconded  by  the  native  energy  of  our  citizens, 
will  soon,  I  hope,  to  our  force  add  the  benefits  of 
skill.  The  acquisition  of  Canada  this  year,  as  far  as 
the  neighborhood  of  Quebec,  will  be  a  mere  matter  of 
marching,  and  will  give  us  experience  for  the  attack 
of  Halifax  the  next,  and  the  final  expulsion  of  Eng- 
land from  the  American  continent.  Halifax  once 
taken,  every  cock-boat  of  hers  must  return  to  Eng- 
land for  repairs.  Their  fleet  will  annihilate  our  pub- 
lic force  on  the  water,  but  our  privateers  will  eat  out 


Correspondence  1 3 1 

the  vitals  of  their  commerce.  Perhaps  they  will, 
burn  New  York  or  Boston.  If  they  do,  we  must 
burn  the  city  of  London,  not  by  expensive  fleets  or 
congreve  rockets,  but  by  employing  an  hundred  or 
two  Jack-the-painters,  whom  nakedness  famine, 
desperation  and  hardened  vice,  will  abundantly  fur- 
nish from  among  themselves.  We  have  a  rumor  now 
afloat  that  the  orders  of  council  are  repeated.  The 
thing  is  impossible  after  Castlereagh's  late  declara- 
tion in  Parliament,  and  the  reconstruction  of  a  Per- 
cival  ministry. 

I  consider  this  last  circumstance  fortunate  for  us. 
The  repeal  of  the  orders  of  council  would  only  add 
recruits  to  our  minority,  and  enable  them  the  more  to 
embarrass  our  march  to  thorough  redress  of  our  past 
wrongs,  and  permanent  security  for  the  future.  This 
we  shall  attain  if  no  internal  obstacles  are  raised  up. 
The  exclusion  of  their  commerce  from  the  United 
States,  and  the  closing  of  the  Baltic  against  it,  which 
the  present  campaign  in  Europe  will  effect,  will 
accomplish  the  catastrophe  already  so  far  advanced 
on  them.  I  think  your  anticipations  of  the  effects 
of  this  are  entirely  probable,  their  arts,  their  science, 
and  what  they  have  left  of  virtue,  will  come  over  to 
us,  and  although  their  vices  will  come  also,  these,  I 
think,  will  soon  be  diluted  and  evaporated  in  a  coun- 
try of  plain  honesty.  Experience  will  soon  teach 
the  new-comers  how  much  more  plentiful  and  pleas- 
ant is  the  subsistence  gained  by  wholesome  labor  and 

fair  dealing,  than  a  precarious  and  hazardous  depend- 


i82  reffersoa's;  Works 

ence  on  the  enterprises  of  vice  and  violence.  Still  I 
agree  with  you  that  these  immigrations  will  give 
strength  to  English  partialities,  to  eradicate  which  is 
one  of  the  most  consoling  expectations  from  the  war. 
But  probably  the  old  hive  will  be  broken  up  by  a 
revolution,  and  a  regeneration  of  its  principles  render 
intercourse  with  it  no  longer  contaminating.  A 
republic  there  like  ours,  and  a  reduction  of  their 
naval  power  within  the  limits  of  their  annual  facili- 
ties of  payment,  might  render  their  existence  even 
interesting  to  us.  It  is  the  construction  of  their 
government,  and  its  principles  and  means  of  corrup- 
tion, which  make  its  continuance  inconsistent  with 
the  safety  of  other  nations.  A  change  in  its  form 
might  make  it  an  honest  one,  and  justify  a  confidence 
in  its  faith  and  friendship.  That  regeneration  how- 
ever will  take  a  longer  time  than  I  have  to  live.  I 
shall  leave  it  to  be  enjoyed  among  you,  and  make 
my  exit  with  a  bow  to  it,  as  the  most  flagitious  of 
governments  I  leave  among  men.  I  sincerely  wish 
you  may  live  to  see  the  prodigy  of  its  renovation, 
enjoying  in  the  meantime  health  and  prosperity. 


TO    GENERAL   THADDEUS    KOSCIUSKO. 

MONTICELLO,    AugUSt    5,    1 8*1 2. 

Dear  General, —  ******** 
I  have  little  to  add  to  my  letter  of  June  We  have 
entered  Upper  Canada,  and  I  think  there  can  be  no 
doubt  of  our  soon  having  in  our  possession  the  whole 


Correspondence  183 

of  the  St.  Lawrence  except  Quebec.  We  have  at 
this  moment  about  two  hundred  privateers  on  the 
ocean,  and  numbers  more  going  out  daily.  It  is 
believed  we  shall  fit  out  about  a  thousand  in  the 
whole.  Their  success  has  been  already  great,  and 
I  have  no  doubt  they  will  cut  up  more  of  the  com- 
merce of  England  than  all  the  navies  of  Europe  could 
do,  could  those  navies  venture  to  sea  at  all.  You 
will  find  that  every  sea  on  the  globe  where  England 
has  any  commerce,  and  where  any  port  can  be  found 
to  sell  prizes,  will  be  filled  with  our  privateers.  God 
bless  you  and  give  you  a  long  and  happy  life. 


TO   THE    PRESIDENT    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 
(JAMES    MADISON). 

MONTICELLO,    AugUSt    5,    l8l2. 

Dear  Sir  —  %%%%%%%%% 
I  am  glad  of  the  re-establishment  of  a  Percival  min- 
istry. The  opposition  would  have  recruited  our 
minority  by  half  way  offers.  With  Canada  in  hand 
we  can  go  to  treaty  with  an  off-set  for  spoliation 
before  the  war.  Our  farmers  are  cheerful  in  the 
expectation  of  a  good  price  for  wheat  in  Autumn. 
Their  pulse  will  be  regulated  by  this,  and  not  by  the 
successes  or  disasters  of  the  war.  To  keep  open  suf- 
ficient markets  is  the  very  first  object  towards  main- 
taining the  popularity  of  the  war,  which  is  as  great 
at  present  as  could  be  desired.  We  have  just  had  a 
fine  rain  of  il  inches  in  the  most  critical  time  for 


l84  Jefferson's  Works 

our  corn.  The  weather  during  the  harvest  was  as 
advantageous  as  could  be.  I  am  sorry  to  find  you 
remaining  so  long  at  Washington.  The  effect  on 
your  health  may  lose  us  a  great  deal  of  your  time ;  a 
couple  of  months  at  Montpelier  at  this  season  would 
not  lose  us  an  hour.  Affectionate  salutations  to 
Mrs.  Madison  and  yourself. 


TO    THE    HONORABLE    ROBERT    WRIGHT. 

MONTICELLO,    AugUSt    8,     l8l2. 

Dear  Sir, — I  receive  and  return  the  congratula- 
tions of  your  letter  of  July  6  with  pleasure,  and  join 
the  great  mass  of  my  fellow  citizens  in  saying,  "Well 
done,  good  and  faithful  servants,  receive  the  benedic- 
tions which  your  constituents  are  ready  to  give  you. ' ' 
The  British  government  seem  to  be  doing  late,  what 
done  earlier  might  have  prevented  war;  to  wit: 
repealing  the  orders  in  Council.  But  it  should  take 
more  to  make  peace  than  to  prevent  war.  The  sword 
once  drawn,  full  justice  must  be  done.  "  Indemnifi- 
cation for  the  past  and  security  for  the  future,'' 
should  be  painted  on  our  banners.  For  1,000  ships 
taken,  and  6,000  seamen  impressed,  give  us  Canada 
for  indemnification,  and  the  only  security  they  can 
give  us  against  their  Henrys,  and  the  savages,  an.d 
agree  that  the  American  flag  shall  protect  the  persons 
of  those  sailing  under  it,  both  parties  exchanging 
engagements  that  neither  will  receive  the  seamen  of 
the  other  on  board  their  vessels.     This  done,  I  should 


Correspondence  l8S 

be  for  peace  with  England  and  then  war  with  France. 
One  at  a  time  is  enough,  and  in  fighting  the  one  we 
need  the  harbors  of  the  other  for  our  prizes.  Go  on 
as  you  have  begun,  only  quickening  your  pace,  and 
receive  the  benedictions  and  prayers  of  those  who 
are  too  old  to  offer  anything  else. 


TO    THOMAS    LETRE. 

MONTICELLO     AugUSt    8,    l8l2. 

Dear  Sir, — I  duly  received  your  favor  of  the  14th 
ultimo,  covering  a  paper  containing  proceedings  of 
the  patriots  of  South  Carolina.  It. adds  another  to 
the  many  proofs  of  their  steady  devotion  to  their  own 
country.  I  can  assure  you  the  hearts  of  their  fellow 
citizens  in  this  State  beat  in  perfect  unison  with  them, 
and  with  their  government.  Of  this  their  concur- 
rence in  the  election  of  Mr.  Madison  and  Mr.  Gerry, 
at  the  ensuing  election,  will  give  sufficient  proof. 
The  schism  in  Massachusetts,  when  brought  to  the 
crisis  of  principle,  will  be  found  to  be  exactly  the 
same  as  in  the  Revolutionary  war.  The  monarchists 
will  be  left  alone,  and  will  appear  to  be  exactly  the 
tories  of  the  last  war.  Had  the  repeal  of  the  orders 
of  council,  which  now  seems  probable,  taken  place 
earlier,  it  might  have  prevented  war;  but  much  more 
is  requisite  to  make  peace — "  indemnification  for  the 
past,  and  .security  for  the  future,"  should  be  the 
motto  of  the  war.  1,000  ships  taken,  6,000  seamen 
impressed,   savage  butcheries  of  our  citizens,   and 


1 86  leff^rsonls'Warks 

incendiary  machinations  against  our  union,  declare 
that  they  and  their  allies,  the  Spaniards,  must  retire 
from  the  Atlantic  side  of  our  continent  as  the  only 
security  or  indemnification  which  will  be  effectual. 
Accept  the  assurances  of  my  great  esteem  and  respect. 


TO    COLONEL    WILLIAM    DUANE. 

Monticello,  October  i,  1812. 
Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  September  the  20th  has 
been  duly  received,  and  I  cannot  but  be  gratified  by 
the  assurance  it  expresses,  that  my  aid  in  the  councils 
of  our  government  would  increase  the  public  con- 
fidence in  them ;  because  it  admits  an  inference  that 
they  have  approved  of  the  course  pursued,  when  I 
heretofore  bore  a  part  in  those  councils.  I  profess, 
too,  so  much  of  the  Roman  principle,  as  to  deem  it 
honorable  for  the  general  of  yesterday  to  act  as  a 
corporal  to-day,  if  his  services  can  be  useful  to  his 
country;  holding  that  to  be  false  pride,  which  post- 
pones the  public  good  to  any  private  or  personal  con- 
siderations. But  I  am  past  service.  The  hand  of 
age  is  upon  me.  The  decay  of  bodily  faculties 
apprises  me  that  those  of  the -mind  cannot  be  unim- 
paired, had  I  not  still  better  proofs.  Every  year 
counts  by  increased  debility,  and  departing  faculties 
keep  the  score.  The  last  year  it  was  the  sight,  this 
it  is  the  hearing,  the  next  something  else  will  be 
going,  until  all  is  gone.  Of  all  this  I  was  sensible 
before  I  left  Washington,  and  probably  my  fellow 


Correspondence  187 

laborers  saw  it  before  I  did.  The  decay  of  memory 
was  obvious ;  it  is  now  become  distressing.  But  the 
mind  too,  is  weakened.  When  I  was  young,  mathe- 
matics was  the  passion  of  my  life.  The  same  passion 
has  returned  upon  me,  but  with  unequal  powers. 
Processes  which  I  then  read  off  with  the  facility  of 
common  discourse,  now  cost  me  labor,  and  time,  and 
slow  investigation.  When  I  offered  this,  therefore, 
as  one  of  the  reasons  deciding  my  retirement  from 
office,  it  was  offered  in  sincerity  and  a  consciousness 
of  its  truth.  And  I  think  it  a  great  blessing  that  I 
retain  understanding  enough  to  be  sensible  how 
much  of  it  I  have  lost,  and  to  avoid  exposing  myself 
as  a  spectacle  for  the  pity  of  my  friends ;  that  I  have 
surmounted  the  difficult  point  of  knowing  when  to 
retire.  As  a  compensation  for  faculties  departed, 
nature  gives  me  good  health,  and  a  perfect  resigna- 
tion to  the  laws  of  decay  which  she  has  prescribed 
to  all  the  forms  and  combinations  of  matter. 

The  detestable  treason  of  Hull  has,  indeed,  excited 
a  deep  anxiety  in  all  breasts.  The  depression  was  in 
the  first  moment  gloomy  and  portentous.  But  it  has 
been  succeeded  by  a  revived  animation,  and  a  deter- 
mination to  meet  the  occurrence  with  increased 
efforts;  and  I  have  so  much  confidence  in  the  vigor- 
ous minds  and  bodies  of  our  countrymen,  as  to  be 
fearless  as  to  the  final  issue.  The  treachery  of  Hull, 
like  that  of  Arnold,  cannot  be  matter  of  blame  on  our 
government.  His  character,  as  an  officer  of  skill  and 
bravery,  was  established  on  the  trials  of  the  last  war, 


1 88  Jeff ersoa's;  Works 

and  no  previous  act  of  his  life  had  led  to  doubt  his 
fidelity.  Whether  the  Head  of  the  war  department 
is  equal  to  his  charge,  I  am  not  qualified  to  decide. 
I  knew  him  only  as  a  pleasant,  gentlemanly  man  in 
society;  and  the  indecision  of  his  character  rather 
added  to  the  amenity  of  his  conversation.  But 
when  translated  from  the  colloquial  circle  to  the 
great  stage  of  national  concerns,  and  the  direction 
of  the  extensive  operations  of  war,  whether  he  has 
been  able  to  seize  at  one  glance  the  long  line  of  de- 
fenceless border  presented  by  our  enemy,  the  masses 
of  strength  which  we  hold  on  different  points  of  it, 
the  facility  this  gave  us  of  attacking  him,  on  the 
same  day,  on  all  his  points,  from  the  extremity  of 
the  lakes  to  the  neighborhood  of  Quebec,  and  the 
perfect  indifference  with  which  this  last  place,  im- 
pregnable as  it  is,  might  be  left  in  the  hands  of  the 
enemy  to  fall  of  itself;  whether,  I  say,  he  could  see 
and  prepare  vigorously  for  all  this,  or  merely  wrapped 
himself  in  the  cloak  of  cold  defence,  I  am  uninformed. 
I  clearly  think  with  you  on  the  competence  of  Monroe 
to  embrace  great  views  of  action.  The  decision  of 
his  character,  his  enterprise,  firmness,  industry,  and 
unceasing  vigilance,  would,  I  believe,  secure,  as  I  am 
sure  they  would  merit,  the  public  confidence,  and 
give  us  all  the  success  which  our  means  can  accom- 
plish. If  our  operations  have  suffered  or  languished 
from  any  want  of  energy  in  the  present  head  which 
directs  them,  I  have  so  much  confidence  in  the  wis- 
dom and  conscientious  integrity  of  Mr.  Madison,  as 


Correspondence  *  89 

to  be  satisfied,  that  however  torturing  to  his  feelings, 
he  will  fulfil  his  duty  to  the  public  and  to  his  own 
reputation,  by  making  the  necessary  change.  Per- 
haps he  may  be  preparing  it  while  we  are  talking 
about  it ;  for  of  all  these  things  I  am  uninformed.  I 
fear  that  Hull's  surrender  has  been  more  than  the 
mere  loss  of  a  year  to  us.  Besides  bringing  on  us  the 
whole  mass  of  savage  nations,  whom  fear  and  not 
affection  has  kept  in  quiet,  there  is  danger  that  in 
giving  time  to  an  enemy  who  can  send  reinforce- 
ments of  regulars  faster  than  we  can  raise  them,  they 
may  strengthen  Canada  and  Halifax  beyond  the 
assailment  of  our  lax  and  divided  powers.  Perhaps, 
however,  the  patriotic  efforts  from  Kentucky  and 
Ohio,  by  recalling  the  British  force  to  its  upper  posts, 
may  yet  give  time  to  Dearborn  to  strike  a  blow 
below.  Effectual  possession  of  the  river  from 
Montreal  to  the  Chaudiere,  which  is  practicable, 
would  give  us  the  upper  country  at  our  leisure,  and 
close  forever  the  scenes  of  the  tomahawk  and  scalp- 
ing knife. 

But  these  things  are  for  others  to  plan  and  achieve. 
The  only  succor  from  the  old  must  lie  in  their  prayers. 
These  I  offer  up  with  sincere  devotion;  and  in  my 
concern  for  the  great  public,  I  do  not  overlook  my 
friends,  but  supplicate  for  them,  as  I  do  for  yourself, 
a  long  course  of  freedom,  happiness  and  prosperity. 


i9°  Jefferson's  Works 

\ 

TO    THOMAS    C.    FLOURNEY. 

Monticello,  October  i,  1812. 
Sir, — Your  letter  of  August  29th  is  just  now 
received,  having  lingered  long  on  the  road.  I  owe 
you  much  thankfulness  for  the  favorable  opinion 
you  entertain  of  my  services,  and  the  assurance 
expressed  that  they  would  again  be  acceptable  in 
the  executive  chair.  But,  Sir,  I  was  sincere  in 
stating  age  as  one  of  the  reasons  of  my  retirement 
from  office,  beginning  then  to  be  conscious  of  its 
effects,  and  now  much  more  sensible  of  them.  Servile 
inertness  is  not  what  is  to  save  our  country ;  the  con- 
duct of  a  war  requires  the  vigor  and  enterprise  of 
younger  heads.  All  such  undertakings,  therefore, 
are  out  of  the  question  with  me,  and  I  say  so  with 
the  greater  satisfaction,  when  I  contemplate  the 
person  to  whom  the  executive  powers  were  handed 
over.  You  probably  do  not  know  Mr.  Madison  per- 
sonally, or  at  least  intimately,  as  I  do.  I  have 
known  him  from  1779,  when  he  first  came  into  the 
public  councils,  and  from  three  and  thirty  years, 
trial,  I  can  say  conscientiously  that  I  do  not  know 
in  the  world  a  man  of  purer  integrity,  more  dispas- 
sionate, disinterested  and  devoted  to  genuine  repub- 
licanism; nor  could  I,  in  the  whole  scope  of  America 
and  Europe,  point  out  an  abler  head.  He  may  be 
illy  seconded  by  others,  betrayed  by  the  Hulls  and 
Arnolds  of  our  country,  for  such  there  are  in  every 
country,  and  with  sorrow  and  suffering  we  know  it. 


Correspondence  19  * 

But  what  man  can  do  will  be  done  by  Mr.  Madison. 
I  hope,  therefore,  there  will  be  no  difference  among 
republicans  as  to  his  re-election,  and  we  shall  know 
his  value  when  we  have  to  give  him  up,  and  to  look 
at  large  for  his  successor.  With  respect  to  the  unfor- 
tunate loss  of  Detroit  and  our  army,  I  with  pleasure 
see  the  animation  it  has  inspired  through  our  whole 
country,  but  especially  through  the  Western  States, 
and  the  determination  to  retrieve  our  loss  and  our 
honor  by  increased  exertions.  I  am  not  without 
hope  that  the  western  efforts  under  General  Har- 
rison, may  oblige  the  enemy  to  remain  at  their  upper 
posts,  and  give  Dearborn  a  fair  opportunity  to  strike 
a  blow  below.  A  possession  of  the  river  from  Mont- 
real to  the  Chaudiere,  gives  us  the  upper  country  of 
course,  and  closes  forever  the  scenes  of  the  toma- 
hawk and  scalping  knife.  Quebec  is  impregnable, 
but  it  is  also  worthless,  and  may  be  safely  left  in  their 
hands  to  fall  of  itself.  The  vigorous  minds  and 
bodies  of  our  countrymen  leave  me  no  fear  as  to 
ultimate  results.  In  this  confidence  I  resign  myself 
to  the  care  of  those  whom  in  their  younger  days  I 
assisted  in  taking  care  of,  and  salute  you  with  assur- 
ances of  esteem  and  respect. 


TO    DR.    ROBERT    PATTERSON. 

Monticello,  December  27,   181 2. 
Dear  Sir, — After  an  absence  of  five  weeks  at  a 
distant  possession  of  mine,  to  which  I  pay  such  visits 


1 9  2  Jeif  ersonuV  Works 

three  or  four  times  a  year,  I  find  here  your  favor  of 
November  30th.  I  am  very  thankful  to  you  for  the 
description  of  Redhefer's  machine.  I  had  never 
before  been  abie  to  form  an  idea  of  what  his  principle 
of  deception  was.  He  is  the  first  of  the  inventors  of 
perpetual  motion  within  my  knowledge,  who  has  had 
the  cunning  to  put  his  visitors  on  a  false  pursuit,  by 
amusing  them  with  a  sham  machinery  whose  loose 
and  vibratory  motion  might  impose  on  them  the 
belief  that  it  is  the  real  source  of  the  motion  they  see. 
To  this  device  he  is  indebted  for  a  more  extensive 
delusion  than  I  have  before  witnessed  on  this  point. 
We  are  full  of  it  as  far  as  this  State,  and  I  know  not 
how  much  farther.  In  Richmond  they  have  done 
me  the  honor  to  quote  me  as  having  said  that  it  was 
a  possible  thing.  A  poor  Frenchman  who  called  on 
me  the  other  day,  with  another  invention  of  per- 
petual motion,  assured  me  that  Dr.  .Franklin,  many 
years  ago,  expressed  his  opinion  to  him  that  it  was 
not  impossible.  Without  entering  into  contest  on 
this  abuse  of  the  Doctor's  name,  I  gave  him  the 
answer  I  had  given  to  others  before,  that  the  Al- 
mighty himself  could  not  construct  a  machine  of 
perpetual  motion  while  the  laws  exist  which  He  has 
prescribed  for  the  government  of  matter  in  our  sys- 
tem; that  the  equilibrium  established  by  Him  be- 
tween cause  and  effect  must  be  suspended  to  effect 
that  purpose.  But  Redhefer  seems  to  be  reaping  a 
rich  harvest  from  the  public  deception.  The  office 
of  science  is  to  instruct  the  ignorant.     Would  it  be 


Correspondence  x93 

unworthy  of  some  one  of  its  votaries  who  witness 
this  deception,  to  give  a  popular  demonstration  of 
the  insufficiency  of  the  ostensible  machinery,  and  of 
course  of  the  necessary  existence  of  some  hidden 
mover?  And  who  could  do  it  with  more  effect  on 
the  public  mind  than  yourself? 

I  received,  at  the  same  time,  the  Abbe  Rochon's 
pamphlets  and  book  on  his  application  of  the  double 
refraction  of  the  Iceland  Spath,  to  the  measure  of 
small  angles.  I  was  intimate  with  him  in  France, 
and  had  received  there,  in  many  conversations,  ex- 
planations of  what  is  contained  in  these  sheets.  I 
possess,  too,  one  of  his  lunettes  which  he  had  given 
to  Dr.  Franklin,  and  which  came  to  me  through  Mr. 
Hopkinson.  You  are  therefore  probably  acquainted 
with  it.  The  graduated  bar  on  each  side  is  12  inches 
long.  The  one  extending  to  37'  of  angle,  the  other 
to  3,438  diameter  in  distance  of  the  object  viewed. 
On  so  large  a  scale  of  graduation,  a  nonias  might 
distinctly  enough  subdivide  the  divisions  of  10"  to 
10"  each;  which  is  certainly  a  great  degree  of  pre- 
cision. But  not  possessing  the  common  micrometer 
of  two  semi-lenses,  I  am  not  able  to  judge  of  their 
comparative  merit.        ****** 


TO    JOHN    ADAMS. 

Monticello,  December  28,   1812. 
Dear  Sir, — An  absence  of  five  or  six  weeks,  on  a 
journey  I  take  three  or  four  times  a  year,  must  apolo- 

YOL.  XIH-13 


i94  Jefferson  VWorks 

gize  for  my  late  acknowledgment  of  your  favor  of 
October  12th.  After  getting  through  the  mass  of 
business  which  generally  accumulates  during  my 
absence,  my  first  attention  has  been  bestowed  on  the 
subject  of  your  letter.  I  turned  to  the  passages  you 
refer  to  in  Hutchinson  and  Winthrop,  and  with  the 
aid  of  their  dates,  I  examined  our  historians  to  see 
if  Wollaston's  migration  to  this  State  was  noticed 
by  them.  It  happens,  unluckily,  that  Smith  and 
Stith,  who  alone  of  them  go  into  minute  facts,  bring 
their  histories,  the  former  only  to  1623,  and  the  latter 
to  1624.  Wollaston's  arrival  in  Massachusetts  was 
in  1625,  and  his  removal  to  this  State  was  "some 
time"  after.  Beverly  &  Keith,  who  came  lower 
down,  are  nearly  superficial,  giving  nothing  but  those 
general  facts  which  every 'one  knew  as  well  as  them- 
selves. If  our  public  records  of  that  date  were  not 
among  those  destroyed  by  the  British  on  their  inva- 
sion of  this  State,  they  may  possibly  have  noticed 
Wollaston.  What  I  possessed  in  this  way  have  been 
given  out  to  two  gentlemen,  the  one  engaged  in 
writing  our  history,  the  other  in  collecting  our 
ancient  laws ;  so  that  none  of  these  resources  are 
at  present  accessible  to  me.  Recollecting  that 
Nathaniel  Morton,  in  his  New  England  memorial, 
gives  with  minuteness  the  early  annals  of  the  colony 
of  New  Plymouth,  and  occasionally  interweaves  the 
occurrences  of  that  on  Massachusetts  Bay,  I  recurred 
to  him,  and  under  the  year  1628,  I  find  he  notices 
both  Wollaston  and  Thomas  Morton,  and  gives  with 


Correspondence  19s 

respect  to  both,  some  details  which  are  not  in  Hutch- 
inson or  Winthrop.  As  you  do  not  refer  to  him,  and 
so  possibly  may  not  have  his  book,  I  will  transcribe 
from  it  the  entire  passage,  which  will  prove  at  least 
my  desire  to  gratify  your  curiosity  as  far  as  the 
materials  within  my  power  will  enable  me. 

Extract  from  Nathaniel  Morton's  New  England's 
Memorial,  pp.  93  to  99,  Anno  1628.  "Whereas, 
about  three  years  before  this  time,  there  came  over 
one  Captain  Wollaston,1  a  man  of  considerable  parts, 
and  with  him  three  or  four  more  of  some  eminency, 
who  brought  with  them  a  great  many  servants,  with 
provisions  and  other  requisites  for  to  begin  a  planta- 
tion, and  pitched  themselves  in  a  place  within  the 
Massachusetts  Bay,  which  they  called  afterwards 
by  their  captain's  name,  Mount  Wollaston;  which 
place  is  since  called  by  the  name  of  Brain  try.  And 
amongst  others  that  came  with  him,  there  was  one 
Mr.  Thomas  Morton,  who,  it  should  seem,  had  some 
small  adventure  of  his  own  or  other  men's  amongst 
them,  but  had  little  respect,  and  was  slighted  by 
the  meanest  servants  they  kept.  They  having  con- 
tinued some  time  in  New  England,  and  not  finding 
things  to  answer  their  expectation,  nor  profit  to  arise 
as  they  looked  for,  the  said  Captain  Wollaston  takes 
a  great  part  of  the  servants  and  transports  them  to 
Virginia,  and  disposed  of  them  there,  and  writes  back 

1  This  gentleman's  name  is  here  occasionally  used,  and  although  he 
came  over  in  the  year  1625,  yet  these  passages  in  reference  to  Morton 
fell  out  about  this  year,  and  therefore  referred  to  this  place. 


19 6  Jeffersorfs  Works 

to  one  Mr.  Rasdale,  one  of  his  chief  partners,  (and 
accounted  then  merchant,)  to  bring  another  part  of 
them  to  Virginia,  likewise  intending  to  put  them  off 
there  as  he  had  done  the  rest ;  and  he,  with  the  con- 
sent of  the  said  Rasdale,  appointed  one  whose  name 
was  Filcher,  to  be  his  Lieutenant,  and  to  govern  the 
remainder  of  the  plantation  until  he  or  Rasdale 
should  take  further  order  thereabout.  But  the 
aforesaid  Morton,  (having  more  craft  than  honesty,) 
having  been  a  petty-fogger  at  Furnival's-inn,  he,  in 
the  other's  absence,  watches  an  opportunity,  (com- 
mons being  put  hard  among  them,)  and  got  some 
strong  drink  and  other  junkets,  and  made  them  a 
feast,  and  after  they  were  merry,  he  began  to  tell 
them  he  would  give  them  good  counsel.  You  see, 
(saith  he,)  that  many  of  your  fellows  are  carried  to 
Virginia,  and  if  you  stay  still  until  Rasdale's  return, 
you  will  also  be  carried  away  and  sold  for  slaves  with 
the  rest ;  therefore  I  would  advise  you  to  thrust  out 
Lieutenant  Filcher,  and  I  having  a  part  in  the  planta- 
tion, will  receive  you  as  my  partners  and  consociates, 
so  you  may  be  free  from  service,  and  we  will  converse, 
plant,  trade  and  live  together  as  equals  (or  to  the  like 
effect).  This  counsel  was  easily  followed;  so  they 
took  opportunity,  and  thrust  Lieutenant  Filcher  out 
of  doors,  'and  would  not  suffer  him  to  come  any  more 
amongst  them,  but  forced  him  to  seek  bread  to  eat 
and  other  necessaries  amongst  his  neighbors,  till  he 
would  get  passage  for  England.  (See  the  sad  effect 
of  want  of  good  government.) 


Correspondence  197 

".After  this  they  fell  to  great  licentiousness  of  life, 
in  all  prophaneness,  and  the  said  Morton  became  lord 
of  misrule,  and  maintained  (as  it  were)  a  school  of 
Atheism,  and  after  they  had  got  some  goods  into 
their  hands,  and  got  much  by  trading  with  the 
Indians,  they  spent  it  as  vainly,  in  quaffing  and 
drinking  both  wine  and  strong  liquors  in  great  excess, 
(as  some  have  reported,)  ten  pounds  worth  in  a 
morning,  setting  up  a  May  pole,  drinking  and  dancing 
about  like  so  many  fairies,  or  furies  rather,  yea  and 
worse  practices,  as  if  they  had  anew  revived  and 
celebrated  the  feast  of  the  Roman  goddess  Flora, 
or  the  beastly  practices  of  the  mad  Bacchanalians. 
The  said  Morton  likewise  to  show  his  poetry,  com- 
posed sundry  rythmes  and  verses,  some  tending  to 
licentiousness,  and  others  to  the  detraction  and  scan- 
dal of  some  persons'  names,  which  he  affixed  to  his 
idle  or  idol  May-pole;  they  changed  also  the  name 
of  their  place,  and  instead  of  calling  it  Mount  Wollas- 
ton,  they  called  it  the  Merry  Mount,  as  if  this  jollity 
would  have  lasted  always.  But  this  continued  not 
long,  for  shortry  after  that  worthy  gentleman  Mr. 
John  Endicot,  who  brought  over  a  patent  under  the 
broad  seal  of  England  for  the  government  of  the 
Massachusetts,  visiting  those  parts,  caused  that  May- 
pole to  be  cut  down,  and  rebuked  them  for  their  pro- 
phaneness, and  admonished  them  to  look  to  it  that 
they  walked  better ;  so  the  name  was  again  changed 
and  called  Mount  Dagon. 

"  Now  to  maintain  this  riotous  prodigality  and  pro- 


i98  Jefferson's  Works 

fuse  expense,  the  said  Morton  thinking  himself  law- 
less, and  hearing  what  gain  the  fishermen  made  of 
trading  of  pieces,  powder,  and  shot,  he  as  head  of  this 
consortship,  began  the  practice  of  the  same  in  these 
parts;  and  first  he  taught  the  Indians  how  to  use 
them,  to  charge  and  discharge  'em,  and  what  pro- 
portion of  powder  to  give  the  piece,  according  to  the 
size  of  bigness  of  the  same,  and  what  shot  to  use  for 
fowl,  and  what  for  deer ;'  and  having  instructed  them, 
he  employed  some  of  them  to  hunt  and  fowl  for  him ; 
so  as  they  became  somewhat  more  active  in  that 
imployment  than  any  of  the  English,  by  reason  of 
their  swiftness  of  foot,  and  nimbleness  of  body,  being 
also  quick-sighted,  and  by  continual  exercise,  well 
knowing  the  haunt  of  all  sorts  of  game;  so  as  when 
they  saw  the  execution  that  a  piece  would  do,  and 
the  benefit  that  might  come  by  the  same,  they  be- 
came very  eager  after  them,  and  would  not  stick  to 
give  any  price  they  could  attain  to  for  them ;  account- 
ing their  bows  and  arrows  but  baubles  in  comparison 
of  them. 

"And  here  we  may  take  occasion  to  bewail  the 
mischief  which  came  by  this  wicked  man,  and  others 
like  unto  him ;  in  that  notwithstanding  laws  for  the 
restraint  of  selling  ammunition  to  the  natives,  that 
so  far  base  covetousness  prevailed,  and  doth  still 
prevail,  as  that  the  Salvages  became  amply  furnished 
with  guns,  powder,  shot,  rapiers,  pistols,  and  also 
well  skilled  in  repairing  of  defective  arms :  yea  some 
have  not  spared  to  tell  them  how  gunpowder  is  made, 


Correspondence  199 

and  all  the  materials  in  it,  and  they  are  to  be  had  in 
their  own  land;  and  would  (no  doubt,  in  case  they 
could  attain  to  the  making  of  Saltpeter)  teach  them 
to  make  powder,  and  what  mischief  may  fall  out  unto 
the  English  in  these  parts  thereby,  let  this  pestilent 
fellow  Morton  (aforenamed)  bear  a  great  part  of  the 
blame  and  guilt  of  it  to  future  generations.  But  lest 
I  should  hold  the  reader  too  long  in  relation  to  the 
particulars  of  his  vile  actings;  when  as  the  English 
that  then  lived  up  and  down  about  the  Massachu- 
setts, and  in  other  places,  perceiving  the  sad  conse- 
quences of  his  trading,  so  as  the  Indians  became  fur- 
nished with  the  English  arms  and  ammunition,  and 
expert  in  the  improving  of  them,  and  fearing  that 
they  should  at  one  time  or  another  get  a  blow  thereby; 
and  also  taking  notice,  that  if  he  were  let  alone  in  his 
way,  they  should  keep  no  servants  for  him,  because 
he  would  entertain  any,  how  vile  soever,  sundry  of 
the  chief  of  the  straggling  plantations  met  together, 
and  agreed  by  mutual  consent  to  send  to  Plimouth, 
who  were  then  of  more  strength  to  join  with  them, 
to  suppress  this  mischief;  who  considering  the  par- 
ticulars proposed  to  them  to  join  together  to  take 
some  speedy  course  to  prevent  (if  it  might  be)  the 
evil  that  was  accruing  towards  them;  and  resolved 
first  to  admonish  him  of  his  wickedness  respecting 
the  premises,  laying  before  him  the  injury  he  did  to 
their  common  safety,  and  that  his  acting  considering 
the  same  was  against  the  King's  proclamation;  but 
he  insolently  persisted  on  in  his  way,  and  said  the 


soo  Jefferson's  Works 

King  was  dead,  and  his  displeasure  with  him,  and 
threatened  them  that  if  they  come  to  molest  him, 
they  should  look  to  themselves;  so  that  they  saw 
that  there  was  no  way  but  to  take  him  by  force ;  so 
they  resolved  to  proceed  in  such  a  way,  and  obtained 
of  the  Governor  of  Plimouth  to  send  Capt.  Standish 
and  some  other  aid  with  him,  to  take  the  said  Morton 
by  force,  the  which  accordingly  was  done;  but  they 
found  him  to  stand  stiffly  on  his  defence,  having  made 
fast  his  doors,  armed  his  consorts,  set  powder  and 
shot  ready  upon  the  table;  scoffed  and  scorned  at 
them,  he  and  his  complices  being  filled  with  strong 
drink,  were  desperate  in  their  way;  but  he  himself 
coming  out  of  doors  to  make  a  shot  at  Capt.  Standish, 
he  stepping  to  him  put  by  his  piece  and  took  him,  and 
so  little  hurt  was  done ;  and  so  he  was  brought  pris- 
oner to  Plimouth,  and  continued  in  durance  till  an 
opportunity  of  sending  him  for  England,  which  was 
done  at  their  common  charge,  and  letters  also  with 
him,  to  the  honorable  council  for  New  England,  and 
returned  again  into  the  country  in  some  short  time, 
with  less  punishment  than  his  demerits  deserved  (as 
was  apprehended) .  The  year  following  he  was  again 
apprehended,  and  sent  for  England,  where  he  lay  a 
considerable  time  in  Exeter  gaol ;  for  besides  his  mis- 
carriage here  in  New  England,  he  was  suspected  to 
have  murthered  a  man  that  had  ventured  monies 
with  him  when  he  came  first  into  New  England ;  and 
a  warrant  was  sent  over  from  the  Lord  Chief  Justice 
to  apprehend  him,  by  virtue  whereof,  he  was  by  the 


Correspondence  201 

Governor  of  Massachusetts  sent  into  England,  and 
for  other  of  his  misdemeanors  amongst  them  in  that 
government,  they  demolished  his  house,  that  it  might 
no  longer  be  a  roost  for  such  unclean  birds.  Not- 
withstanding he  got  free  in  England  again,  and  wrote 
an  infamous  and  scurrilous  book  against  many  godly 
and  chief  men  of  the  country,  full  of  lies  and  slanders, 
and  full  fraught  with  prophane  calumnies  against 
their  names  and  persons,  and  the  way  of  God.  But 
to  the  intent  I  may  not  trouble  the  reader  any  more 
with  mentioning  of  him  in  this  history ;  in  fine,  sun- 
dry years  after  he  came  again  into  the  country,  and 
was  imprisoned  at  Boston  for  the  aforesaid  book  and 
other  things,  but  denied  sundry  things  therein,  affirm- 
ing his  book  was  adulterated.  And  soon  after  being 
grown  old  in  wickedness,  at  last  ended  his  life  at 
Piscataqua.  But  I  fear  I  have  held  the  reader  too 
long  about  so  unworthy  a  person,  but  hope  it  may 
be  useful  to  take  notice  how  wickedness  was  begin- 
ning, and  would  have  further  proceeded,  had  it  not 
been  prevented  timely. " 

So  far  Nathaniel  Morton.  The  copy  you  have  of 
Thomas  Morton's  New  English  Canaan,  printed  in 
1637  by  Stam  of  Amsterdam,  was  a  second  edition 
of  that  "infamous  and  scurrilous  book  against  the 
godly."  The  first  had  been  printed  in  1632,  by 
Charles  Green,  in  a  quarto  of  188  pages,  and  is  the 
one  alluded  to  by  N.  Morton.  Both  of  them  made 
a  part  of  the  American  library  given  by  White  Ken- 
nett  in  1 7 13  to  the  Society  for  the  propagation  of  the 


202  Jefferson's  Works 

Gospel  in  foreign  parts.  This  society  being  a  char- 
tered one,  still,  as  I  believe,  existing,  and  probably 
their  library  also,  I  suppose  that  these  and  the  other 
books  of  that  immense  collection,  the  catalogue  of 
which  occupies  275  pages  quarto,  are  still  to  be  found 
with  them.  If  any  research  I  can  hereafter  make 
should  ever  bring  to  my  knowledge  anything  more 
of  Wollaston,  I  shall  not  fail  to  communicate  it  to 
you.     Ever  and  affectionately  yours. 


TO    HENRY   MIDDLETON,    ESQ. 

Monticello,  January  8,  1813. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  November  25th  was  a 
month  on  its  passage  to  me.  I  received  with  great 
pleasure  this  mark  of  your  recollection,  heightened 
by  the  assurance  that  the  part  I  have  acted  in  public 
life  has  met  your  approbation.  Having  seen  the 
people  of  all  other  nations  bowed  down  to  the  earth 
under  the  wars  and  prodigalities  of  their  rulers,  I 
have  cherished  their  opposites,  peace,  economy,  and 
riddance  of  public  debt,  believing  that  these  were 
the  high  road  to  public  as  well  as  to  private  pros- 
perity and  happiness.  And,  certainly,  there  never 
before  has  been  a  state  of  the  world  in  which  such 
forbearances  as  we  have  exercised  would  not  have 
preserved  our  peace.  Nothing  but  the  total  pros- 
tration of  all  moral  principle  could  have  produced 
the  enormities  which  have  forced  us  at  length  into 
the  war.     On  one  hand,  a  ruthless  tyrant,  drenching 


Correspondence  203 

Europe  in  blood  to  obtain  through  future  time  the 
character  of  the  destroyer  of  mankind ;  on  the  other, 
a  nation  of  buccaneers,  urged  by  sordid  avarice,  and 
embarked  in  the  flagitious  enterprise  of  seizing  to 
itself  the  maritime  resources  and  rights  of  all  other 
nations,  have  left  no  means  of  peace  to  reason  and 
moderation.  And  yet  there  are  beings  among  us 
who  think  we  ought  still  to  have  acquiesced.  As  if 
while  full  war  was  waging  on  one  side,  we  could  lose 
by  making  some  reprisal  on  the  other.  The  paper 
you  were  so  kind  as  to  enclose  me  is  a  proof  you  are 
not  of  this  sentiment;  it  expresses  our  grievances 
with  energy  and  brevity,  as  well  as  the  feelings  they 
ought  to  excite.  And  I  see  with  pleasure  another 
proof  that  South  Carolina  is  ever  true  to  the  princi- 
ples of  free  government.  Indeed,  it  seems  to  me 
that  in  proportion  as  commercial  avarice  and  cor- 
ruption advance  on  us  from  the  north  and  east,  the 
principles  of  free  government  are  to  retire  to  the 
agricultural  States  of  the  south  and  west,  as  their 
last  asylum  and  bulwark.  With  honesty  and  self- 
government  for  her  portion,  agriculture  may  abandon 
contentedly  to  others  the  fruits  of  commerce  and  cor- 
ruption. Accept,  I  pray  you,  the  assurances  of  my 
great  esteem  and  respect. 


204  Jefferson's  Works 

TO    JAMES    RONALDSON. 

Monticello,  January  12,  1813. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  November  2d  arrived 
a  little  before  I  set  out  on  a  journey  on  which  I  was 
absent  between  five  and  six  weeks.  I  have  still 
therefore  to  return  you  my  thanks  for  the  seeds 
accompanying  it,  which  shall  be  duly  taken  care  of, 
and  a  communication  made  to  others  of  such  as  shall 
prove  valuable.  I  have  been  long  endeavoring  to 
procure  the  Cork  tree  from  Europe,  but  without  suc- 
cess. A  plant  which  I  brought  with  me  from  Paris 
died  after  languishing  some  time,  and  of  several 
parcels  of  acorns  received  from  a  correspondent  at 
Marseilles,  not  one  has  ever  vegetated.  I  shall  con- 
tinue my  endeavors,  although  disheartened  by  the 
nonchalance  of  our  Southern  fellow  citizens,  with 
whom  alone  they  can  thrive.  It  is  now  twenty-five 
years  since  I  sent  them  two  shipments  (about  500 
plants)  of  the  Olive  tree  of  Aix,  the  finest  Olives  in 
the  world.  If  any  of  them  still  exist,  it  is  merely 
as  a  curiosity  in  their  gardens ;  not  a  single  orchard 
of  them  has  been  planted.  I  sent  them  also  the 
celebrated  species  of  Sainfoin,1  from  Malta,  which 
yields  good  crops  without  a  drop  of  rain  through 
the  season.  It  was  lost.  The  upland  rice  which  I 
procured  fresh  from  Africa  and  sent  them,  has  been 
preserved  and  spread  in  the  upper  parts  of  Georgia, 
and  I  believe  in  Kentucky.     But  we  must  acknowl- 

1  Called  Sulla. 


Correspondence  205 

edge  their  services  in  furnishing  us  an  abundance  of 
cotton,  a  substitute  for  silk,  flax  and  hemp.  The 
ease  with  which  it  is  spun  will  occasion  it  to  sup- 
plant the  two  last,  and  its  cleanliness  the  first. 
Household  manufacture  is  taking  deep  root  with  us. 
I  have  a  carding  machine,  two  spinning  machines, 
and  looms  with  the  flying  shuttle  n  full  operation 
for  clothing  my  own  family;  and  I  verily  believe  that 
by  the  next  winter  this  State  will  not  need  a  yard  of 
imported  coarse  or  middling  clothing.  I  think  we 
have  already  a  sheep  for  every  inhabitant,  which 
will  suffice  for  clothing,  and  one-third  more,  which 
a  single  year  will  add,  will  furnish  blanketing.  With 
respect  to  marine  hospitals,  which  are  one  of  the 
subjects  of  your  letter,  I  presume  you  know  that 
such  establishments  have  been  made  by  the  general 
government  in  the  several  States,  that  a  portion  of 
seaman's  wages  is  drawn  for  their  support,  and  the 
government  furnishes  what  is  deficient.  Mr.  Gal- 
latin is  attentive  to  them,  and  they  will  grow  with 
our  growth.  You  doubt  whether  we  ought  to  permit 
the  exportation  of  grain  to  our  enemies;  but  Great 
Britain,  with  her  own  agricultural  support,  and  those 
she  can  command  by  her  access  into  every  sea,  cannot 
be  starved  by  withholding  our  supplies.  And  if  she 
is  to  be  fed  at  all  events,  why  may  we  not  have  the 
benefit  of  it  as  well  as  others?  I  would  not,  indeed, 
feed  her  armies  landed  on  our  territory,  because  the 
difficulty  of  inland  subsistence  is  what  will  prevent 
their  ever  penetrating  far  into  the  country,  and  will 


2o6  Jefferson's  Works 

confine  them  to  the  sea  coast.  But  this  would  be 
my  only  exception.  And  as  to  feeding  her  armies 
in  the  peninsula,  she  is  fighting  our  battles  there,  as 
Bonaparte  is  on  the  Baltic.  He  is  shutting  out  her 
manufactures  from  that  sea,  and  so  far  assisting  us  in 
her  reduction  to  extremity  But  if  she  does  not  keep 
him  out  of  the  peninsular,  if  he  gets  full  command 
of  that,  instead  of  the  greatest  and  surest  of  all  our 
markets,  as  that  has  uniformly  been,  we  shall  be 
excluded  from  it,  or  so  much  shackled  by  his  tyranny 
and  ignorant  caprices,  that  it  will  become  for  us  what 
France  now  is.  Besides,  if  we  could  by  starving  the 
English  armies,  oblige  hem  to  withdraw  from  the 
peninsular,  it  would  be  to  send  them  here;  and  I 
think  we  had  better  feed  them  there  for  pay,  than 
feed  and  fight  them  here  for  nothing.  A  truth,  too, 
not  to  be  lost  sight  of  is,  that  no  country  can  pay  war 
taxes  if  you  suppress  all  their  resources.  To  keep 
the  war  popular,  we  must  keep  open  the  markets. 
As  long  as  good  prices  can  be  had,  the  people  will 
support  the  war  cheerfully.  If  you  should  have  an 
opportunity  of  conveying  to  Mr.  Heriot  my  thanks 
for  his  book,  you  will  oblige  me  by  doing  it.  Accept 
the  assurance  of  my  great  esteem  and  respect. 


TO    JOHN    MELISH. 

Monticello,  January  13,  1813. 

Dear  Sir, — I  received  duly  your  favor  of  Decem- 
ber the  1 5th,  and  with  it  the  copies  of  your  map  and 


Correspondence  207 

travels,  for  which  be  pleased  to  accept  my  thanks. 
The  book  I  have  read  with  extreme  satisfaction  and 
information.  As  to  the  Western  States,  particularly, 
it  has  greatly  edified  me ;  for  of  the  actual  condition 
of  that  interesting  portion  of  our  country,  I  had  not 
an  adequate  idea.  I  feel  myself  now  as  familiar  with 
it  as  with  the  condition  of  the  maritime  States.  I 
had  no  conception  that  manufactures  had  made  such 
progress  there,  and  particularly  of  the  number  of 
carding  and  spinning  machine  dispersed  through 
the  whole  country.  We  are  but  beginning  here  to 
have  them  in  our  private  families.  Small  spinning 
jennies  of  from  half  a  dozen  to  twenty  pindles,  will 
soon,  however,  make  their  way  into  the  humblest 
cottages,  as  well  as  the  richest  houses;  and  nothing 
is  more  certain,  han  that  he  coarse  and  middling 
clothing  for  our  families,  will  forever  hereafter  con- 
tinue to  be  made  within  ourselves.  I  have  hitherto 
myself  depended  entirely  on  foreign  manufactures; 
but  I  have  now  thirty-five  spindles  agoing,  a  hand 
carding  machine,  and  looms  with  the  flying  shuttle, 
for  the  supply  of  my  own  farms,  which  will  never 
be  relinquished  in  my  time.  The  continuance  of 
the  war  will  fix  the  habit  generally,  and  out  of  the 
evils  of  impressment  and  of  the  orders  of  council  a 
great  blessing  for  us  will  grow.  I  have  not  formerly 
been  an  advocate  for  great  manufactories.  I  doubted 
whether  our  labor,  employed  in  agriculture,  and  aided 
by  the  spontaneous  energies  of  the  earth,  would  not 
procure  us  more  than  we  could  make  ourselves  of 


208  Jefferson's  Works 

other  necessaries.  But  other  considerations  enter- 
ing into  the  question,  have  settled  my  doubts. 

The  candor  with  which  you  have  viewed  the 
manners  and  condition  of  our  citizens,  is  so  unlike 
the  narrow  prejudices  of  the  French  and  English 
travellers  preceding  you,  who,  considering  each 
the  manners  and  habits  of  their  own  people  as  the 
only  orthodox,  have  viewed  everything  differing 
from  that  test  as  boorish  and  barbarous,  that  your 
work  will  be  read  here  extensively,  and  operate 
great  good. 

Amidst  this  mass  of  approbation  which  is  given  to 
every  other  part  of  the  work,  there  is  a  single  senti- 
ment which  I  cannot  help  wi  hing  to  bring  to  what 
I  think  the  correct  one;  and,  on  a  point  so  interest- 
ing, I  value  your  opinion  too  highly  not  to  ambition 
its  concurrence  with  my  own.  Stating  in  volume 
one,  page  sixty-three,  he  principle  of  difference 
between  the  two  great  political  parties  here,  you 
conclude  it  to  be,  "whether  the  controlling  power 
shall  be  vested  in  this  or  that  set  of  men."  That 
each  party  endeavors  to  get  into  the  administration 
of  the  government,  and  exclude  the  other  from 
power,  is  true,  and  may  be  stated  as  a  motive  of 
action:  but  this  is  only  secondary;  the  primary 
motive  being  a  real  and  radical  difference  of  political 
principle.  I  sincerely '  wish  our  differences  were 
but  personally  who  should  govern,  and  that  the 
principles  of  our  constitution  were  those  of  both 
parties.     Unfortunately,   it  is  otherwise;    and  the 


Correspondence  209 

question  of  preference  between  monarchy  and  repub- 
licanism, which  has  so  long  divided  mankind  else- 
where, threatens  a  permanent  division  here. 

Among  that  section  of  our  citizens  called  feder- 
alists, there  are  three  shades  of  opinion.  Distin- 
guishing between  the  leaders  and  people  who  compose 
it,  the  leaders  consider  the  English  constitution  as 
a  model  of  perfection,  some,  with  a  correction  of 
its  vices,  others,  with  all  its  corruptions  and  abuses. 
This  last  was  Alexander  Hamilton's  opinion,  which 
others,  as  well  as  myself,  have  often  heard  him 
declare,  and  that  a  correction  of  what  are  called 
its  vices,  would  render  the  English  an  impracticable 
government.  This  government  they  wished  to  have 
established  here,  and  only  accepted  and  held  fast, 
at  first,  to  the  present  constitution,  as  a  stepping- 
stone  to  the  final  establishment  of  their  favorite 
model.  This  party  has  therefore  always  clung  to 
England  as  their  prototype,  and  great  auxiliary  in 
promoting  and  effecting  this  change  A  weighty 
minority,  however,  of  these  leaders,  considering  the 
voluntary  conversion  of  our  government  into  a 
monarchy  as  too  distant,  if  not  desperate,  wish  to 
break  off  from  our  Union  its  eastern  fragment,  as 
being,  in  truth,  the  hot-bed  of  American  monarchism, 
with  a  view  to  a  commencement  of  their  favorite 
government,  from  whence  the  other  States  may 
gangrene  by  degrees,  and  the  whole  be  thus  brought 
finally  to  the  desired  point.  For  Massachusetts,  the 
prime  mover  in  this  enterprise,  is  the  last  State  in  the 

VOL.  XIII 14 


2io  Jefferson's  Works 

Union  to  mean  a  final  separation,  as  being  of  all  the 
most  dependent  on  the  others.  Not  raising  bread 
for  the  sustenance  of  her  own  inhabitants,  not  hav- 
ing a  stick  of  timber  for  the  construction  of  vessels, 
her  principal  occupation,  nor  an  article  to  export 
in  them,  where  would  she  be,  excluded  from  the 
ports  of  the  other  States,  and  thrown  into  dependence 
on  England,  her  direct,  and  natural,  but  now  insidi- 
ous rival?  At  the  head  of  this  minority  is  what  is 
called  the  Essex  Junto  of  Massachusetts.  But  the 
majority  of  these  leaders  do  not  aim  at  separation. 
In  this,  they  adhere  to  the  known  principle  of  General 
Hamilton,  never,  under  any  views,  to  break  the 
Union.  Anglomany,  monarchy,  and  separation, 
then,  are  the  principles  of  the  Essex  federalists. 
Anglomany  and  monarchy,  those  of  the  Hamilton- 
ians,  and  Anglomany  alone,  that  of  the  portion 
among  the  people  who  call  themselves  federalists. 
These  last  are  as  good  republicans  as  the  brethren 
whom  they  oppose,  and  differ  from  them  only  in 
their  devotion  to  England  and  hatred  of  France 
which  they  have  imbibed  from  their  leaders.  The 
moment  that  these  leaders  should  avowedly  propose 
a  separation  of  the  Union,  or  the  establishment  of 
regal  government,  their  popular  adherents  would 
quit  them  to  a  man,  and  join  the  republican  standard; 
and  the  partisans  of  this  change,  even  in  Massachu- 
setts, would  thus  find  themselves  an  army  of  officers 
without  a  soldier. 

The  party  called  republican  is  steadily  for  the 


Correspondence  2 1 1 

support  of  the  present  constitution.  They  obtained 
at  its  commencement,  all  the  amendments  to  it  they 
desired.  These  reconciled  them  to  it  perfectly,  and 
if  they  have  any  ulterior  view,  it  is  only,  perhaps,  to 
popularize  it  further,  by  shortening  the  Senatorial 
term,  and  devising  a  process  for  the  responsibility 
of  judges,  more  practicable  than  that  of  impeach- 
ment. They  esteem  the  people  of  England  and 
France  equally,  and  equally  detest  the  governing 
powers  of  both. 

This  I  verily  believe,  after  an  intimacy  of  forty 
years  with  the  public  councils  and  characters,  is  a 
true  statement  of  the  grounds  on  which  they  are  at 
present  divided,  and  that  it  is  not  merely  an  ambition 
for  power.  An  honest  man  can  feel  no  pleasure  in 
the  exercise  of  power  over  his  fellow  citizens.  And 
considering  as  the  only  offices  of  power  those  con- 
ferred by  the  people  directly,  that  is  to  say,  the 
executive  and  legislative  functions  of  the  General 
and  State  governments,  the  common  refusal  of  these, 
and  multiplied  resignations,  are  proofs  sufficient 
that  power  is  not  alluring  to  pure  minds,  and  is  not, 
with  them,  the  primary  principle  of  contest.  This 
is  my  belief  of  it;  it  is  that  on  which  I  have  acted; 
and  had  it  been  a  mere  contest  who  should  be  per- 
mitted to  administer  the  government  according  to 
its  genuine  republican  principles,  there  has  never 
been  a  moment  of  my  life  in  which  I  should  have 
relinquished  for  it  the  enjoyments  of  my  family,  my 
farm,  my  friends  and  books. 


2i2  Jefferson's  Works 

You  expected  to  discover  the  difference  of  our 
party  principles  in  General  Washington's  valedictory, 
and  my  inaugural  address.  Not  at  all.  General 
Washington  did  not  harbor  one  principle  of  feder- 
alism. He  was  neither  an  Angloman,  a  monarchist, 
nor  a  separatist.  He  sincerely  wished  the  people 
to  have  as  much  self-government  as  they  were  com- 
petent to  exercise  themselves.  The  only  point  on 
which  he  and  I  ever  differed  in  opinion,  was,  that 
I  had  more  confidence  than  he  had  in  the  natural 
integrity  and  discretion  of  the  people,  and  in  the 
safety  and  extent  to  which  they  might  trust  them- 
selves with  a  control  over  their  government.  He 
has  asseverated  to  me  a  thousand  times  his  determi- 
nation that  the  existing  government  should  have  a 
fair  trial,  and  that  in  support  of  it  he  would  spend 
the  last  drop  of  his  blood.  He  did  this  the  more 
repeatedly,  because  he  knew  General  Hamilton's 
political  bias,  and  my  apprehensions  from  it.  It  is 
a  mere  calumny,  therefore,  in  the  monarchists,  to 
associate  General  Washington  with  their  principles. 
But  that  may  have  happened  in  this  case  which 
has  been  often  seen  in  ordinary  cases,  that,  by  oft 
repeating  an  untruth,  men  come  to  believe  it  them- 
selves. It  is  a  mere  artifice  in  this  party  to  bolster 
themselves  up  on  the  revered  name  of  that  first  of 
our  worthies.  If  I  have  dwelt  longer  on  this  subject 
than  was  necessary,  it  proves  the  estimation  in 
which  I  hold  your  ultimate  opinions,  and  my  desire 
of  placing  the  subject  truly  before  them.     In  so 


Correspondence  2 1 3 

doing,  I  am  certain  I  risk  no  use  of  the  communi- 
cation which  may  draw  me  into  contention  before 
the  public.  Tranquillity  is  the  summum  bonum 
of  a  Septagenaire. 

To  return  to  the  merits  of  your  work:  I  consider 
it  as  so  lively  a  picture  of  the  real  state  of  our 
country,  that  if  I  can  possibly  obtain  opportunities 
of  conveyance,  I  propose  to  send  a  copy  to  a  friend 
in  France,  and  another  to  one  in  Italy,  who,  I  know, 
will  translate  and  circulate  it  as  an  antidote  to  the 
misrepresentations  of  former  travellers.  But  what- 
ever effect  my  profession  of  political  faith  may  have 
on  your  general  opinion,  a  part  of  my  object  will  be 
obtained,  if  it  satisfies  you  as  to  the  principles  of 
my  own  action,  and  of  the  high  respect  and  con- 
sideration with  which  I  tender  you  my  salutations. 


TO    COLONEL    WILLIAM    DUANE. 

Monticello,  January  22,   1813. 

Dear  Sir, — I  do  not  know  how  the  publication 
of  the  Review  turned  out  in  point  of  profit,  whether 
gainfully  or  not.  I  know  it  ought  to  have  been  a 
book  of  great  sale.  I  gave  a  copy  to  a  student  of 
William  and  Mary  college,  and  recommended  it  to 
Bishop  Madison,  then  President  of  the  college,  who 
was  so  pleased  with  it  that  he  established  it  as  a 
school-book,  and  as  the  young  gentleman  informed 
me,  every  copy  which  could  be  had  was  immediately 
bought  up,  and  there  was  a  considerable  demand 


2I4  Jefferson's  Works 

for  more.  You  probably  know  best  whether  new 
calls  for  it  have  been  made.  President  Madison 
was  a  good  whig.  *****  Your  experi- 
ment on  that  work  will  enable  you  to  decide  whether 
you  ought  to  undertake  another,  not  of  greater  but 
of  equal  merit.  I  have  received  from  France  a 
MS.  work  on  Political  Economy,  written  by  De  Tutt 
Tracy,  the  most  conspicuous  writer  of  the  present 
day  in  the  metaphysical  line.  He  has  written  a 
work  entitled  Ideology,  which  has  given  him  a  high 
reputation  in  France.  He  considers  that  as  having 
laid  a  solid  foundation  for  the  present  volume  on 
Political  Economy,  and  will  follow  it  by  one  on  Moral 
Duties.  The  present  volume  is  a  work  of  great 
ability.  It  may  be  considered  as  a  review  of  the 
principles  of  the  Economists,  of  Smith  and  of  Say, 
or  rather  an  elementary  book  on  the  same  subject. 
As  Smith  had  corrected  some  principles  of  the 
Economists,  and  Say  some  of  Smith's,  so  Tracy  has 
done  as  to  the  whole.  He  has,  in  my  opinion, 
corrected  fundamental  errors  in  all  of  them,  and  by 
simplifying  principles,  has  brought  the  subject  within 
a  narrow  compass.  I  think  the  volume  would  be 
of  about  the  size  of  the  Review  of  Montesquieu. 
Although  he  puts  his  name  to  the  work,  he  is  afraid 
to  publish  it  in  France,  lest  its  freedom  should  bring 
him  into  trouble.  If  translated  and  published  here, 
he  could  disavow  it,  if  necessary.  In  order  to 
enable  you  to  form  a  better  judgment  of  the  work, 
I  will  subjoin  a  list  of  the  chapters  or  heads,  and  if 


Correspondence  2 1 5 

you  think  proper  to  undertake  the  translation  and 
publication,  I  will  send  the  work  itself.  You  will 
certainly  find   it  one   of  the   very   first  order.     It 

Our  war  on  the  land  has  commenced  most  inau- 
spiciously.  I  fear  we  are  to  expect  reverses  until 
we  can  find  out  who  are  qualified  for  command,  and 
until  these  can  learn  their  profession.  The  proof 
of  a  general,  to  know  whether  he  will  stand  fire,  costs 
a  more  serious  price  than  that  of  a  cannon;  these 
proofs  have  already  cost  us  thousands  of  good  men, 
and  deplorable  degradation  of  reputation,  and  as 
yet  have  elicited  but  a  few  negative  and  a  few  posi- 
tive characters.  But  we  must  persevere  till  we 
recover  the  rank  we  are  entitled  to. 

Accept  the  assurances  of  my  continued  esteem 
and  respect. 


TO    DR.    ROBERT    MORRELL. 

Monticello,  February  5,  1813. 
Sir, — The  book  which  you  were  so  kind  as  to  take 
charge  of  at  Paris  for  me,  is  safely  received,  and  I 
thank  you  for  your  care  of  it,  and  more  particularly 
for  the  indulgent  sentiments  you  are  so  kind  as  to 
express  towards  myself.  I  am  happy  at  all  times 
to  hear  of  the  welfare  of  my  literary  friends  in  that 
country ;  they  have  had  a  hard  time  of  it  since  I  left 
them.  I  know  nothing  which  can  so  severely  try 
the  heart  and  spirit  of  man,  and  especially  of  the 


2i6  Jefferson's  Works 

man  of  science,  as  the  necessity  of  a  passive  acqui- 
escence tinder  the  abominations  of  an  unprincipled 
tyrant  who  is  deluging  the  earth  with  blood  to 
acquire  for  himself  the  reputation  of  a  Cartouche 
or  a  Robin  Hood.  The  petty  larcenies  of  the  Black- 
beards  and  Buccaneers  of  the  ocean,  the  more 
immediately  exercised  on  us,  are  dirty  and  grovelling 
things  addressed  to  our  contempt,  while  the  horrors 
excited  by  the  Scelerat  of  France  are  beyond  all 
human  execrations.  With  my  thanks  for  your  kind 
attentions,  be  pleased  to  accept  the  assurance  of 
my  respect. 


TO    GENERAL    THEODORUS    BAILEY. 

Monticello,  February  6,   1813. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  January  25th  is  re- 
ceived, and  I  have  to  renew  my  thanks  to  you  for 
the  map  accompanying  it.  These  proofs  of  friendly 
remembrance  give  additional  interest  to  the  sub- 
jects which  convey  them.  The  scenes,  too,  which 
compose  the  map,  are  become  highly  interesting. 
Our  first  entrance  on  them  has  been  peculiarly 
inauspicious.  Our  men  are  good,  but  force  without 
conduct  is  easily  baffled.  The  Creator  has  not 
thought  proper  to  mark  those  in  the  forehead  who 
are  of  stuff  to  make  good  generals.  We  are  first, 
therefore,  to  seek  them  blindfold,  and  then  let  them 
learn  the  trade  at  the  expense  of  great  losses.  But 
our  turn  of  success  will  come  by-and-bye,  and  we 


Correspondence  217 

must  submit  to  the  previous  misfortunes  which  are 
to  be  the  price  of  it.  I  think  with  you  on  the  subject 
of  privateers.  Our  ships  of  force  will  undoubtedly 
be  blockaded  by  the  enemy,  and  we  shall  have  no 
means  of  annoying  them  at  sea  but  by  small,  swift- 
sailing  vessels;  these  will  be  better  managed  and 
more  multiplied  in  the  hands  of  individuals  than  of 
the  government.  In  short,  they  are  our  true  and 
only  weapon  in  a  war  against  Great  Britain,  when 
once  Canada  and  Nova  Scotia  shall  have  been  rescued 
from  them.  The  opposition  to  them  in  Congress  is 
merely  partial.  It  is  a  part  of  the  navy  fever,  and 
proceeds  from  the  desire  of  securing  men  for  the 
public  ships  by  suppressing  all  other  employments 
from  them.  But  I  do  not  apprehend  that  this  ill- 
judged  principle  is  that  of  a  majority  of  Congress. 
I  hope,  on  the  contrary,  they  will  spare  no  encourage- 
ment to  that  kind  of  enterprise.  Our  public  ships, 
to  be  sure,  have  done  wonders.  They  have  saved 
our  military  reputation  sacrificed  on  the  shores  of 
Canada ;  but  in  point  of  real  injury  and  depredation 
on  the  enemy,  our  privateers  without  question  have 
been  most  effectual.  Both  species  of  force  have 
their  peculiar  value.  I  salute  you  with  assurances 
of  friendship  and  respect. 


218  Jefferson's  Works 

TO    THE    PRESIDENT    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 
(JAMES    MADISON). 

Monticello,  February  8,   1813. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  the  27th  ultimo  has 
been  duly  received.  You  have  had  a  long  holiday 
from  my  intrusions.  In  truth  I  have  had  nothing 
to  write  about,  and  your  time  should  not  be  con- 
sumed by  letters  about  nothing.  The  enclosed 
paper,  however,  makes  it  a  duty  to  give  you  the 
trouble  of  reading  it.  You  know  the  handwriting 
and  the  faith  due  to  it.  Our  intimacy  with  the 
writer  leaves  no  doubt  about  his  facts,  and  in  his 
letter  to  me  he  pledges  himself  for  their  fidelity.  He 
says  the  narrative  was  written  at  the  request  of  a 
young  friend  in  Virginia,  and  a  copy  made  for  my 
perusal,  on  the  presumption  it  would  be  interesting 
to  me.  Whether  the  word  "Confidential"  at  the 
head  of  the  paper  was  meant  only  for  his  young 
friend  or  for  myself  also,  nothing  in  his  letter  indi- 
cates. I  must,  therefore,  govern  myself  by  consider- 
ations of  discretion  and  of  duty  combined.  Discre- 
tion dictates  that  I  ought  not  so  to  use  the  paper  as 
to  compromit  my  friend;  an  effect  which  would  be 
as  fatal  to  my  peace  as  it  might  be  to  his  person. 
But  duty  tells  me  that  the  public  interest  is  so  deeply 
concerned  in  your  perfect  knowledge  of  the  characters 
employed  in  its  high  stations,  that  nothing  should 
be  withheld  which  can  give  you  useful  information. 
On  these  grounds  I  commit  it  to  yourself  and  the 


Correspondence  2 19 

Secretary  of  War,  to  whose  functions  it  relates  more 
immediately.  It  may  have  effect  on  your  future 
designation  of  those  to  whom  particular  enterprises 
are  to  be  committed,  and  this  is  the  object  of  the 
communication.  If  you  should  think  it  necessary 
that  the  minds  of  the  other  members  of  the  Cabinet 
should  be  equally  apprised  of  its  contents,  although 
not  immediately  respecting  their  departments,  the 
same  considerations,  and  an  entire  confidence  in 
them  personally,  would  dictate  its  communication 
to  them  also.  But  beyond  this  no  sense  of  duty 
calls  on  me  for  its  disclosure,  and  fidelity  to  my 
friend  strongly  forbids  it.  The  paper  presents  such 
a  picture  of  indecision  in  purpose,  inattention  to 
preparation,  and  imprudence  of  demeanor,  as  to  fix 
a  total  incompetence  for  military  direction.  How 
greatly  we  were  deceived  in  this  character,  as  is 
generally  the  case  in  appointments  not  on  our  own 
knowledge.  I  remember  when  we  appointed  him 
wTe  rejoiced  in  the  acquisition  of  an  officer  of  so  much 
understanding  and  integrity,  as  we  imputed  to  him ; 
and  placed  him  as  near  the  head  of  the  army  as  the 
commands  then  at  our  disposal  admitted.  Perhaps, 
still,  you  may  possess  information  giving  a  different 
aspect  to  this  case,  of  which  I  sincerely  wish  it  may 
be  susceptible.  I  will  ask  the  return  of  the  paper 
when  no  longer  useful  to  you. 

The  accession  to  your  Cabinet  meets  general  appro- 
bation. This  is  chiefly  at  present  given  to  the 
character  most  known,  but  will  be  equally  so  to  the 


220  Jefferson's  Works 

other  when  better  known.     I  think  you  could  not 
have  made  better  appointments. 

The  autumn  and  winter  have  been  most  unfriendly 
to  the  wheat  in  red  lands,  by  continued  cold  and 
alternate  frosts  and  thaws.  The  late  snow  of  about 
ten  inches  now  disappearing,  has  relieved  it.  That 
grain  is  got  to  $2  at  Richmond.  This  is  the  true 
barometer  of  the  popularity  of  the  war.  Ever  affec 
tionately  yours. 


TO    GENERAL   JOHN    ARMSTRONG. 

Monticello,  February  8,  1813. 
Dear  General, — I  have  long  ago  in  my  heart 
congratulated  our  country  on  your  call  to  the  place 
you  now  occupy.  But  with  yourself  personally  it 
is  no  subject  of  congratulation.  The  happiness  of 
the  domestic  fireside  is  the  first  boon  of  heaven; 
and  it  is  well  it  is  so,  since  it  is  that  which  is  the 
lot  of  the  mass  of  mankind.  The  duties  of  office 
are  a  corvee  which  must  be  undertaken  on  far  other 
considerations  than  those  of  personal  happiness. 
But  whether  this  be  a  subject  of  congratulation  or 
of  condolence,  it  furnishes  the  occasion  of  recalling 
myself  to  your  recollection,  and  of  renewing  the 
assurances  of  my  friendship  and  respect.  Whatever 
you  do  in  office,  I  know  will  be  honestly  and  ably  done, 
and  although  we  who  do  not  see  the  whole  ground 
may  sometimes  impute  error,  it  will  be  because  we, 
not  you,  are  in  the  wrong;    or  because  your  views 


Correspondence  221 

are  defeated  by  the  wickedness  or  incompetence  of 
those  you  are  obliged  to  trust  with  their  execution. 
An  instance  of  this  is  the  immediate  cause  of  the 
present  letter.  I  have  enclosed  a  paper  to  the 
President,  with  a  request  to  communicate  it  to  you,' 
and  if  he  thinks  it  should  be  known  to  your  associates 
of  the  Cabinet,  although  not  immediately  respecting 
their  departments,  he  will  communicate  it  to  them 
also.  That  it  should  go  no  further  is  rendered  an 
obligation  on  me  by  considerations  personal  to  a 
young  friend  whom  I  love  and  value,  and  by  the 
confidence  which  has  induced  him  to  commit  him- 
self to  me.  I  hope,  therefore,  it  will  never  be  known 
that  such  a  narrative  has  been  written,  and  much 
less  by  whom  written,  and  to  whom  addressed.  It 
is  unfortunate  that  heaven  has  not  set  its  stamp  on 
the  forehead  of  those  whom  it  has  qualified  for 
military  achievement.  That  it  has  left  us  to  draw 
for  them  in  a  lottery  of  so  many  blanks  to  a  prize, 
and  where  the  blank  is  to  be  manifested  only  by 
the  public  misfortunes.  If  nature  had  planted  the 
faznum  in  cornu  on  the  front  of  treachery,  of  coward- 
ice, of  imbecility,  the  unfortunate  debut  we  have 
made  on  the  theatre  of  war  would  not  have  sunk  our 
spirits  at  home,  and  our  character  abroad.  I  hope 
you  will  be  ready  to  act  on  the  first  breaking  of  the 
ice,  as  otherwise  we  may  despair  of  wresting  Canada 
from  our  enemies.  Their  starving  manufactories 
can  furnish  men  for  its  defence  much  faster  than 
we  can  enlist  them  for  its  assault. 


222  Jefferson's  Works 

Accept  my  prayers  for  success  in  all  your  under- 
takings, and  the  assurance  of  my  affectionate  esteem 
and  respect. 


TO    DR.    BENJAMIN    RUSH. 

Monticello,  March  6,  1813. 
Dear  Sir, — I  received  some  time  ago  a  letter 
signed  "James  Carver,"  proposing  that  myself,  and 
my  friends  in  this  quarter,  should  subscribe  and 
forward  a  sum  of  money  towards  the  expenses  of  his 
voyage  to  London,  and  maintenance  there  while 
going  through  a  course  of  education  in  their  Veteri- 
nary school,  with  a  view  to  his  returning  to  America, 
and  practising  the  art  in  Philadelphia.  The  name, 
person  and  character  of  the  writer,  were  equally 
unknown  to  me,  and  unauthenticated,  but  as  self- 
declared  in  the  letter.  I  supposed  him  an  English- 
man, from  the  style  in  which  he  spoke  of  "  His 
Majesty,"  and  because  an  American,  without  offence 
to  the  laws,  could  not  now  be  going,  nor  be  sent  by 
private  individuals  to  England.  The  scheme  did 
not  appear  to  me  either  the  shortest  or  surest  way 
of  going  to  work  to  accomplish  the  object.  Because, 
if  the  Veterinary  institution  there  be  of  the  celebrity 
he  described,  it  must  already  have  produced  sub- 
jects prepared  for  entering  into  practice,  and  disposed 
to  come  to  a  good  position,  claiming  nothing  till 
they  should  enter  into  function,  or  not  more  than 
their  passage.     I   did  not  receive  the  letter  until 


Correspondence  223 

the  day  had  elapsed  on  which  the  vessel  was  to 
depart  wherein  he  had  taken  his  passage,  and  his 
desire  that  the  answer  should  go  through  you,  is  my 
only  authority  for  troubling  you  with  this,  addressed 
to  you,  whom  I  know,  love,  and  revere,  and  not  to 
him,  who,  for  any  evidence  I  have  but  from  himself, 
may  be  a  zealous  son  of  science,  or  an  adventurer 
wanting  money  to  carry  him  to  London.  I  know 
nothing  of  the  Veterinary  institution  of  London, 
yet  have  no  doubt  it  merits  the  high  character  he 
ascribes  to  it.  It  is  a  nation  which  possesses  many 
learned  men.  I  know  well  the  Veterinary  school 
of  Paris,  of  long  standing,  and  saw  many  of  its 
publications  during  my  residence  there.  They  were 
classically  written,  announced  a  want  of  nothing 
but  certainty  as  to  their  facts r  which  granted,  the 
hypotheses  were  learned  and  plausible.  The  coach- 
horses  of  the  rich  of  Paris  were  availed  of  the  insti- 
tution; but  the  farmers  even  of  the  neighborhood 
could  not  afford  to  call  a  Veterinary  doctor  to  their 
plough-horses  in  the  country,  or  to  send  them  to  a 
livery  stable  to  be  attended  in  the  city.  On  the 
whole,  I  was  not  a  convert  to  the  utility  of  the 
Institution.  You  know  I  am  so  to  that  of  medicine, 
even  in  human  complaints,  but  in  a  limited  degree. 
That  there  are  certain  diseases  of  the  human  body, 
so  distinctly  pronounced  by  well-articulated  symp- 
toms, and  recurring  so  often,  as  not  to  be  mistaken, 
wherein,  experience  has  proved  that  certain  sub- 
stances applied,  will  restore  order,  I  cannot  doubt. 


224  Jefferson's  Works 

Such  are  Kinkina  in  Intermittents,  Mercury  in 
Syphilis,  Castor  Oil  in  Dysentery,  etc.  And  so  far 
I  go  with  the  physicians.  But  there  are  also  a  great 
mass  of  indistinct  diseases,  presenting  themselves 
under  no  form  clearly  characterized,  nor  exactly 
recognized  as  having  occurred  before,  and  to  which 
of  course  the  application  of  no  particular  substance 
can  be  known  to  have  been  made,  nor  its  effect  on 
the  case  experienced.  These  may  be  called  unknown 
cases,  and  they  may  in  time  be  lessened  by  the 
progress  of  observation  and  experiment.  Observing 
that  there  are  in  the  construction  of  the  animal 
system  some  means  provided  unknown  to  us,  which 
have  a  tendency  to  restore  order,  when  disturbed 
by  accident,  called  by  physicians  the  vis  medic  atrix 
nature? ,  I  think  it  safer  to  trust  to  this  power  in  the 
unknown  cases,  than  to  uncertain  conjectures  built 
on  the  ever-changing  hypothetical  systems  of  medi- 
cine. Now,  in  the  Veterinary  department  all  are 
unknown  cases.  Man  can  tell  his  physician  the  seat 
of  his  pain,  its  nature,  history,  and  sometimes  its 
cause,  and  can  follow  his  directions  for  the  curative 
process — but  the  poor  dumb  horse  cannot  signify 
where  his  pain  is,  what  it  is,  or  when  or  whence  it 
came,  and  resists  all  process  for  its  cure.  If  in  the 
case  of  man,  then,  the  benefit  of  medical  interference 
in  such  cases  admits  of  question,  what  must  it  be 
in  that  of  the  horse?  And  to  what  narrow  limits 
is  the  real  importance  of  the  Veterinary  art  reduced  ? 
When  a  boy,  I  knew  a  Doctor  Seymour,  neighbor 


Correspondence  225 

to  our  famous  botanist  Clayton,  who  imagined  he 
could  cure  the  diseases  of  his  tobacco  plants;  he 
bled  some,  administered  lotions  to  others,  sprinkled 
powders  on  a  third  class,  and  so  on— they  only 
withered  and  perished  the  faster.  I  am  sensible 
of  the  presumption  of  hazarding  an  opinion  to  you 
on  a  subject  whereon  you  are  so  much  better  quali- 
fied for  decision,  both  by  reading  and  experience. 
But  our  opinions  are  not  voluntary.  Every  man's 
own  reason  must  be  his  oracle.  And  I  only  express 
mine  to  explain  why  I  did  not  comply  with  Mr. 
Carver's  request;  and  to  give  you  a  further  proof 
that  there  are  no  bounds  to  my  confidence  in  your 
indulgence  in  matters  of  opinion. 

Mr.  Adams  and  myself  are  in  habitual  corre- 
spondence. I  owe  him  a  letter  at  this  time,  and  shall 
pay  the  debt  as  soon  as  I  have  something  to  write 
about:  for  with  the  commonplace  topic  of  politics 
we  do  not  meddle.  ^Vhere  there  are  so  many  others 
on  which  we  agree,  why  should  we  introduce  the 
only  one  on  which  we  differ.  Besides  the  pleasure 
which  our  naval  successes  have  given  to  every  honest 
patriot,  his  must  be  peculiar,  because  a  navy  has 
always  been  his  hobby-horse.  A  little  further  time 
will  show  whether  his  ideas  have  been  premature, 
and  whether  the  little  we  can  oppose  on  that  element 
to  the  omnipotence  of  our  enemy  there,  would  lessen 
the  losses  of  the  war,  or  contribute  to  shorten  its 
duration,  the  legitimate  object  of  every  measure.  On 
the  land,  indeed,  we  have  been  most  unfortunate; 

VOL.  XIII — 15 


226  Jeff  ersdn's^Works 

so  wretched  a  succession  of  generals  never  before 
destroyed  the  fairest  expectations  of  a  nation,  count- 
ing on  the  bravery  of  its  citizens,  which  has  proved 
itself  on  all  these  trials.  Our  first  object  must  now 
be  the  vindication  of  our  character  in  the  field ;  after 
that,  peace  with  the  liber um  mare,  personal  inviola- 
bility there,  and  ouster  from  this  continent  of  the 
incendiaries  of  savages.  God  send  us  these  good 
things,  and  to  you  health  and  life  here,  till  you  wish 
to  awake  to  it  in  another  state  of  being. 


TO    MONSIEUR    DE    LOMERIE. 

Monticello,  April  3,   1813. 

Sir, — Your  letter  of  the  26th  has  been  received, 
as  had  been  that  of  the  5  th.  The  preceding  ones 
had  been  complied  with  by  applications  verbal  and 
written  to  the  members  of  the  government,  to  which 
I  could  expect  no  specific  answers,  their  whole  time 
being  due  to  the  public,  and  employed  on  their 
concerns.  Had  it  been  my  good  fortune  to  preserve 
at  the  age  of  seventy,  all  the  activity  of  body  and 
mind  which  I  enjoyed  in  earlier  life,  I  should  have 
employed  it  now,  as  then,  in  incessant  labors  to 
serve  those  to  whom  I  could  be  useful.  But  the 
torpor  of  age  is  weighing  heavily  on  me.  The 
writing  table  is  become  my  aversion,  and  its  drudg- 
eries beyond  my  remaining  powers.  I  have  retired, 
then,  of  necessity,  from  all  correspondence  not 
indispensably  called  for  by  some  special  duty,  and  I 


Correspondence  227 

hope  that  this  necessity  will  excuse  me  with  you 
from  further  interference  in  obtaining  your  passage 
to  France,  which  requires  solicitations  and  exertions 
beyond  what  I  am  able  to  encounter.  I  request 
this  the  more  freely,  because  I  am  sure  of  finding,  in 
your  candor  and  consideration,  an  acquiescence  in 
the  reasonableness  of  my  desire  to  indulge  the 
feeble  remains  of  life  in  that  state  of  ease  and  tran- 
quillity which  my  condition,  physical  and  moral, 
require.  Accept,  then,  with  my  adieux,  my  best 
wishes  for  a  safe  and  happy  return  to  your  native 
country    and  the  assurances  of  my  respect. 


TO    THOMAS    PAINE    McMATRON. 

Monticello,  April  3,   18 1 3. 

Sir, — Your  favor  of  March  24th  is  received,  and 
nothing  could  have  been  so  pleasing  to  me  as  to  have 
been  able  to  comply  with  the  request  therein  made, 
feeling  especial  motives  to  become  useful  to  any 
person  connected  with  Mr.  M 'Matron.  But  I  shall 
state  to  you  the  circumstances  which  control  my  will, 
and  rest  on  your  candor  their  just  estimate.  When 
I  retired  from  the  government  four  years  ago,  it  was 
extremely  my  wish  to  withdraw  myself  from  all 
concern  with  public  affairs,  and  to  enjoy  with  my 
fellow  citizens  the  protection  of  government,  under 
the  auspices  and  direction  of  those  to  whom  it  was 
so  worthily  committed.  Solicitations  from  my 
friends,  however,  to  aid  them  in  their  applications 


228  Jefferson's  Works 

for  office,  drew  from  me  an  unwary  compliance,  till 
at  length  these  became  so  numerous  as  to  occupy 
a  great  portion  of  my  time  in  writing  letters  to  the 
President  and  heads  of  departments,  and  although 
these  were  attended  to  by  them  with  great  indul- 
gence, yet  I  was  sensible  they  could  not  fail  of 
being  very  embarrassing.  They  kept  me,  at  the 
same  time,  standing  forever  in  the  attitude  of  a 
suppliant  before  them,  daily  asking  favors  as  humili- 
ating and  afflicting  to  my  own  mind,  as  they  were 
unreasonable  from  their  multitude.  I  was  long 
sensible  of  the  necessity  of  putting  an  end  to  these 
unceasing  importunities,  when  a  change  in  the  heads 
of  the  two  departments  to  which  they  were  chiefly 
addressed,  presented  me  an  opportunity.  I  came 
to  a  resolution,  therefore,  on  that  change,  never  to 
make  another  application.  I  have  adhered  to  it 
strictly,  and  find  that  on  its  rigid  observance,  my 
own  happiness  and  the  friendship  of  the  government 
too  much  depend,  for  me  to  swerve  from  it  in  future. 
On  consideration  of  these  circumstances,  I  hope  you 
will  be  sensible  how  much  they  import,  both  to  the 
government  and  myself;  and  that  you  do  me  the 
justice  to  be  assured  of  the  reluctance  with  which 
I  decline  an  opportunity  of  being  useful  to  one  so 
nearly  connected  with  Mr.  M 'Matron,  and  that  with 
the  assurance  of  my  regrets,  you  will  accept  that 
of  my  best  wishes  for  your  success,  and  of  my  great 
respect. 


Correspondence  2  29 

TO    COLONEL    WILLIAM    DUANE. 

Monticello,  April  4,  1813. 
Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  February  14th  has 
been  duly  received,  and  the  MS.  of  the  commentary 
on  Montesquieu  is  also  safe  at  hand.  I  now  forward 
to  you  the  work  of  Tracy,  which  you  will  find  a 
valuable  supplement  and  corrective  to  those  we 
already  possess  on  political  economy.  It  is  a  little 
unlucky  that  its  outset  is  of  a  metaphysical  character, 
which  may  damp  the  ardor  of  perusal  in  some  readers. 
He  has  been  led  to  this  by  a  desire  to  embody  this 
work,  as  well  as  a  future  one  he  is  preparing  on 
morals,  with  his  former  treatise  on  Ideology.  By- 
the-bye,  it  is  merely  to  this  work  that  Bonaparte 
alludes  in  his  answer  to  his  Council  of  State,  pub- 
lished not  long  since,  in  which  he  scouts  "the  dark 
and  metaphysical  doctrine  of  Ideology,  which, 
diving  into  first  causes,  founds  on  this  basis  a  legis- 
lation of  the  people,  etc."  If,  indeed,  this  answer 
be  not  a  forgery,  for  everything  is  now  forged,  even 
to  the  fat  of  our  beef  and  mutton:  yet  the  speech 
is  not  unlike  him,  and  affords  scope  for  an  excel- 
lent parody.  I  wish  you  may  succeed  in  getting 
the  commentary  on  Montesquieu  reviewed  by  the 
Edinburgh  Reviewers.  I  should  expect  from  them 
an  able  and  favorable  analysis  of  it.  I  sent  a  copy 
of  it  to  a  friend  in  England,  in  the  hope  he  would 
communicate  it  to  them;  not,  however,  expressing 
that  hope,  lest  the  source  of  it  should  have  been 


2 3°  Jefferson's  Works 

made  known.  But  the  book  will  make  its  way,  and 
will  become  a  standard  work.  A  copy  which  I  sent 
to  France  was  under  translation  by  one  of  the  ablest 
men  of  that  country. 

It  is  true  that  I  am  tired  of  practical  politics,  and 
happier  while  reading  the  history  of  ancient  than 
of  modern  times.  The  total  banishment  of  all 
moral  principle  from  the  code  which  governs  the 
intercourse  of  nations,  the  melancholy  reflection 
that  after  the  mean,  wicked  and  cowardly  cunning 
of  the  cabinets  of  the  age  of  Machiavelli  had  given 
place  to  the  integrity  and  good  faith  wThich  dignified 
the  succeeding  one  of  a  Chatham  and  Turgot,  that 
this  is  to  be  swept  away  again  by  the  daring  prof- 
ligacy and  avowed  destitution  of  all  moral  principle 
of  a  Cartouche  and  a  Blackbeard,  sickens  my  soul 
unto  death.  I  turn  from  the  contemplation  with 
loathing,  and  take  refuge  in  the  histories  of  other 
times,  where,  if  they  also  furnish  their  Tarquins, 
their  Catilines  and  Caligulas,  their  stories  are  handed 
to  us  under  the  brand  of  a  Livy,  a  Sallust  and  a 
Tacitus,  and  we  are  comforted  with  the  reflection 
that  the  condemnation  of  all  succeeding  generations 
has  confirmed  the  censures  of  the  historian,  and 
consigned  their  memories  to  everlasting  infamy,  a 
solace  we  cannot  have  with  the  Georges  and  Napo- 
leons but  by  anticipation. 

In  surveying  the  scenes  of  which  we  make  a  part, 
I  confess  that  three  frigates  taken  by  our  gallant 
little  navy,  do  not  balance  in  my  mind  three  armies 


Correspondence  231 

lost  by  the  treachery  cowardice,  or  incapacity  of 
those  to  whom  they  were  intrusted.  I  see  that  our 
men  are  good,  and  only  want  generals.  We  may  yet 
hope,  however,  that  the  talents  which  always  exist 
among  men  will  show  themselves  with  opportunity, 
and  that  it  will  be  found  that  this  age  also  can  pro- 
duce able  and  honest  defenders  of  their  country,  at 
what  further  expense,  however,  of  blood  and  treasure, 
is  yet  to  be  seen.  Perhaps  this  Russian  mediation 
may  cut  short  the  history  of  the  present  war,  and 
leave  to  us  the  laurels  of  the  sea,  while  our  enemies 
are  bedecked  with  those  of  the  land.  This  would 
be  the  reverse  of  what  has  been  expected,  and  per- 
haps of  what  was  to  be  wished. 

I  have  never  seen  the  work  on  Political  Economy, 
of  which  you  speak.  Say  and  Tracy  contain  the 
sum  of  that  science  as  far  as  it  has  been  soundly 
traced,  in  my  judgment.  And  it  is  a  pity  that  Say's 
work  should  not,  as  well  as  Tracy's,  be  made  known 
to  our  countrymen  by  a  good  translation.  It  would 
supplant  Smith's  book  altogether,  because  shorter, 
clearer  and  sounder. 

Accept  my  friendly  salutations  and  assurances  of 
continued  esteem  and  respect. 


232  Jefferson's  Works 

TO    THE    PRESIDENT    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 
(JAMES    MADISON). 

Monticello,  May  21,  1813. 

Dear  Sir, — The  enclosed  letter  from  Whit  was 
unquestionably  intended  for  you.  The  subject, 
the  address,  both  of  title  and  place,  prove  it,  and 
the  mistake  of  the  name  only  shows  the  writer  to 
be  a  very  uninquisitive  statesman.  Dr.  Water- 
house's  letter,  too,  was  intended  for  your  eye,  and 
although  the  immediate  object  fails  by  previous 
appointment,  yet  he  seems  to  entertain  further 
wishes.  I  enclose,  too,  the  newspapers  he  refers 
to,  as  some  of  their  matter  may  have  escaped  your 
notice,  and  the  traitorous  designs  fostered  in  Massa- 
chusetts, and  explained  in  them,  call  for  attention. 

We  have  never  seen  so  unpromising  a  crop  of 
wheat  as  that  now  growing.  The  winter  killed  an 
unusual  proportion  of  it,  and  the  fly  is  destroying 
the  remainder.  We  may  estimate  the  latter  loss 
at  one-third  at  present,  and  fast  increasing  from 
the  effect  of  the  extraordinary  drought.  With  such 
a  prospect  before  us,  the  blockade  is  acting  severely 
on  our  past  labors.  It  caught  nearly  the  whole 
wheat  of  the  middle  and  upper  country  in  the  hands 
of  the  farmers  and  millers,  whose  interior  situation 
had  prevented  their  getting  it  to  an  earlier  market. 
From  this  neighborhood  very  little  had  been  sold. 
When  we  cast  our  eyes  on  the  map,  and  see  the 
extent  of  country  from  New  York  to  North  Carolina 


Correspondence  233 

inclusive,  whose  produce  is  raised  on  the  waters  of 
the  Chesapeake,  (for  Albemarle  sound  is,  by  the  canal 
of  Norfolk,  become  a  water  of  the  Chesapeake,)  and 
consider  its  productiveness,  in  comparison  with  the 
rest  of  the  Atlantic  States,  probably  a  full  half,  and 
that  all  this  can  be  shut  up  by  two  or  three  ships  of 
the  line  lying  at  the  mouth  of  the  bay,  we  see  that 
an  injury  so  vast  to  ourselves  and  so  cheap  to  our 
enemy,  must  forever  be  resorted  to  by  them,  and 
constantly   maintained.    To  defend  all  the  shores 
of  those  waters  in  detail  is  impossible.     But  is  there 
not  a  single  point  where  they  may  be  all  defended 
by  means  to  which  the  magnitude  of  the  object  gives 
a  title?     I  mean  at  the  mouth  of  the  Chesapeake. 
Not  by  ships  of  the  line,  or  frigates ;  for  I  know  that 
with  our  present  enemy  we  cannot  contend  in  that 
way.     But  would  not  a  sufficient  number  of  gun- 
boats of  small  draught,  stationed  in  Lynhaven  river, 
render  it  unsafe  for  ships  of  war  either  to  ascend 
the  Chesapeake  or  to  lie  at  its  mouth?     I  am  not 
unaware  of  the  effect  of  the  ridicule  cast  on  this 
instrument   of   defence   by   those   who   wished   for 
engines  of  offence.     But  resort  is  had  to  ridicule  only 
when  reason  is  against  us.     I  know,  too,  the  preju- 
dices of  the  gentlemen  of  the  navy,  and  that  these 
are  very  natural.     No  one  has  been  more  gratified 
than  myself  by  the  brilliant  achievements  of  our 
little  navy.     They  have  deeply  wounded  the  pride 
of  our  enemy,  and  been  balm  to  ours,  humiliated 
on  the  land,  where  our  real  strength  was  felt  to  lie. 


234  Jefferson's  Works 

But  divesting  ourselves  of  the  enthusiasm  these 
brave  actions  have  justly  excited,  it  is  impossible  not 
to  see  that  all  these  vessels  must  be  taken  and  added 
to  the  already  overwhelming  force  of  our  enemy; 
that  even  while  we  keep  them,  they  contribute 
nothing  to  our  defence,  and  that  so  far  as  we  are  to 
be  defended  by  anything  on  the  water,  it  must  be 
by  such  vessels  as  can  assail  under  advantageous 
circumstances,  and  under  adverse  ones  withdraw 
from  the  reach  of  the  enemy.  These,  in  shoaly 
waters,  are  the  humble,  the  ridiculed,  but  the  formid- 
able gunboats.  I  acknowledge  that  in  the  case 
which  produces  these  reflections,  the  station  of  Lyn- 
haven  river  would  not  be  safe  against  land  attacks 
on  the  boats,  and  that  a  retreat  for  them  is  necessary 
in  this  event.  With  a  view  to  this  there  was  a  survey 
made  by  Colonel  Tatham,  which  was  lodged  either 
in  the  War  or  Navy  Office,  showing  the  depth  and 
length  of  a  canal  which  would  give  them  a  retreat 
from  Lynhaven  river  into  the  eastern  branch  of 
Elizabeth  river.  I  think  the  distance  is  not  over 
six  or  eight  miles,  perhaps  not  so  much,  through  a 
country  entirely  flat,  and  little  above  the  level  of 
the  sea.  A  cut  of  ten  yards  wide  and  four  yards 
deep,  requiring  the  removal  of  forty  cubic  yards  of 
earth  for  every  yard  in  length  of  the  canal,  at  twenty 
cents  the  cubic  yard,  would  cost  about  $15,000  a 
mile.  But  even  doubling  this  to  cover  all  errors 
of  estimate,  although  in  a  country  offering  the 
cheapest  kind  of  labor,  it  would  be  nothing  compared 


Correspondence  235 

with  the  extent  and  productions  of  the  country  it 
is  to  protect.  It  would,  for  so  great  a  country,  bear 
no  proportion  to  what  has  been  expended,  and  justly 
expended  by  the  Union,  to  defend  the  single  spot  of 
New  York. 

While  such  a  channel  of  retreat  secures  effectually 
the  safety  of  the  gunboats,  it  insures  also  their  aid 
for  the  defence  of  Norfolk,  if  attacked  from  the  sea. 
And  the  Norfolk  canal  gives  them  a  further  passage 
into  Albemarle  sound,  if  necessary  for  their  safety, 
or  in  aid  of  the  flotilla  of  that  sound,  or  to  receive 
the  aid  of  that  flotilla  either  at  Norfolk  or  in  Lyn- 
haven  river.  For  such  a  flotilla  there  also  will 
doubtless  be  thought  necessary,  that  being  the  only 
outlet  now,  as  during  the  last  war,  for  the  waters  of 
the  Chesapeake.  Colonel  Monroe,  I  think,  is  person- 
ally intimate  with  the  face  of  all  that  country,  and 
no  one,  I  am  certain,  is  more  able  or  more  disposed 
than  the  present  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  to  place 
himself  above  the  navy  prejudices,  and  do  justice  to 
the  aptitude  of  these  humble  and  economical  vessels 
to  the  shallow  waters  of  the  South.  On  the  bold 
Northern  shores  they  would  be  of  less  account,  and 
the  larger  vessels  will  of  course  be  more  employed 
there.  Were  they  stationed  with  us,  they  would 
rather  attract  danger  than  ward  it  off.  The  only 
service  they  can  render  us  would  be  to  come  in  a 
body  when  the  occasion  offers,  of  overwhelming  a 
weaker  force  of  the  enemy  occupying  our  bay,  to 
oblige  them  to  keep  their  force  in  a  body,  leaving 
the  mass  of  our  coast  open. 


236  Jefferson's  Works 

Although  it  is  probable  there  may  not  be  an  idea 
here  which  has  not  been  maturely  weighed  by  your- 
self, and  with  a  much  broader  view  of  the  whole  field, 
yet  I  have  frankly  hazarded  them,  because  possibly 
some  of  the  facts  or  ideas  may  have  escaped  in  the 
multiplicity  of  the  objects  engaging  your  notice, 
and  because  in  every  event  they  will  cost  you  but 
the  trouble  of  reading.  The  importance  of  keeping 
open  a  water  which  covers  wholly  or  considerably 
five  of  the  most  productive  States,  containing  three- 
fifths  of  the  population  of  the  Atlantic  portion  of 
our  Union,  and  of  preserving  their  resources  for  the 
support  of  the  war,  as  far  as  the  state  of  war  and 
the  means  of  the  confederacy  will  admit;  and 
especially  if  it  can  be  done  for  less  than  is  contributed 
by  the  Union  for  more  than  one  single  city,  will 
justify  our  anxieties  to  have  it  effected.  And  should 
my  views  of  the  subject  be  -even  wrong,  I  am  sure 
they  will  find  their  apology  with  you  in  the  purity 
of  the  motives  of  personal  and  public  regard  which 
induce  a  suggestion  of  them.  In  all  cases  I  am 
satisfied  you  are  doing  what  is  for  the  best,  as  far  as 
the  means  put  into  your  hands  will  enable  you,  and 
this  thought  quiets  me  under  every  occurrence,  and 
under  every  occurrence  I  am  sincerely,  affectionately 
and  respectfully  yours. 


Correspondence  237 


TO    MADAME    LA    BARONNE    DE    STAEL-HOLSTEIN. 

United  States  of  America,  May  24,   1813. 

I  received  with  great  pleasure,  my  dear  Madam 
and  friend,  your  letter  of  November  the  10th,  from 
Stockholm,  and  am  sincerely  gratified  by  the  occasion 
it  gives  me  of  expressing  to  you  the  sentiments  of 
high  respect  and  esteem  which  I  entertain  for  you. 
It  recalls  to  my  remembrance  a  happy  portion  of  my 
life,  passed  in  your  native  city;  then  the  seat  of  the 
most  amiable  and  polished  society  of  the  world,  and 
of  which  yourself  and  your  venerable  father  were 
such  distinguished  members.  But  of  what  scenes 
has  it  since  been  the  theatre,  and  with  what  havoc 
has  it  overspread  the  earth!  Robespierre  met  the 
fate,  and  his  memory  the  execration,  he  so  justly 
merited.  The  rich  were  his  victims,  and  perished 
by  thousands.  It  is  by  millions  that  Bonaparte 
destroys  the  poor,  and  he  is  eulogized  and  deified 
by  the  sycophants  even  of  science.  These  merit 
more  than  the  mere  oblivion  to  which  they  will  be 
consigned;  and  the  day  will  come  when  a  just  pos- 
terity will  give  to  their  hero  the  only  preeminence 
he  has  earned,  that  of  having  been  the  greatest  of  the 
destroyers  of  the  human  race.  What  year  of  his  mili- 
tary life  has  not  consigned  a  million  of  human  beings 
to  death,  to  poverty  and  wretchedness!  What  field 
in  Europe  may  not  raise  a  monument  of  the  murders, 
the  burnings,  the  desolations,  the  famines  and 
miseries  it  has  witnessed  from  him!     And  all  this  to 


238  Jefferson's  Works 

acquire  a  reputation,  which  Cartouche  attained  with 
less  injury  to  mankind,  of  being  fearless  of  God  or 
man. 

To  complete  and  universalize  the  desolation  of  the 
globe,  it  has  been  the  will  of  Providence  to  raise  up, 
at  the  same  time,  a  tyrant  as  unprincipled  and  as 
overwhelming,  for  the  ocean.  Not  in  the  poor 
maniac  George,  but  in  his  government  and  nation. 
Bonaparte  will  die,  and  his  tyrannies  with  him.  But 
a  nation  never  dies.  The  English  government,  and 
its  piratical  principles  and  practices,  have  no  fixed 
term  of  duration.  Europe  feels,  and  is  writhing 
under  the  scorpion  whips  of  Bonaparte.  We  are 
assailed  by  those  of  England.  The  one  continent 
thus  placed  under  the  grip  of  England,  and  the 
other  of  Bonaparte,  each  has  to  grapple  with  the 
enemy  immediately  pressing  on  itself.  We  must 
extinguish  the  fire  kindled  in  our  own  house,  and 
leave  to  our  friends  beyond  the  water  that  which 
is  consuming  theirs.  It  was  not  till  England  had 
taken  one  thousand  of  our  ships,  and  impressed  into 
her  service  more  than  six  thousand  of  our  citizens; 
till  she  had  declared,  by  the  proclamation  of  her 
Prince  Regent,  that  she  would  not  repeal  her  aggres- 
sive orders  as  to  us,  until  Bonaparte  should  have 
repealed  his  as  to  all  nations;  till  her  minister,  in 
formal  conference  with  ours,  declared,  that  no 
proposition  for  protecting  our  seamen  from  being 
impressed,  under  color  of  taking  their  own,  was 
practicable  or  admissible;   that,  the  door  to  justice 


Correspondence  2  39 

and  to  all  amicable  arrangement  being  closed,  and 
negotiation  become  both  desperate  and  dishonorable, 
we  concluded  that  the  war  she  had  for  years  been 
waging  against  us,  might  as  well  become  a  war  on 
both  sides.  She  takes  fewer  vessels  from  us  since 
the  declaration  of  war  than  before,  because  they 
venture  more  cautiously;  and  we  now  make  full 
reprisals  where  before  we  made  none.  England  is, 
in  principle,  the  enemy  of  all  maritime  nations,  as 
Bonaparte  is  of  the  continental;  and  I  place  in  the 
same  line  of  insult  to  the  human  understanding,  the 
pretension  of  conquering  the  ocean,  to  establish 
continental  rights,  as  that  of  conquering  the  conti- 
nent, to  restore  maritime  rights.  No,  my  dear 
Madam;  the  object  of  England  is  the  permanent 
dominion  of  the  ocean,  and  the  monopoly  of  the  trade 
of  the  world.  To  secure  this,  she  must  keep  a  larger 
fleet  than  her  own  resources  will  maintain.  The 
resources  of  other  nations,  then,  must  be  impressed 
to  supply  the  deficiency  of  her  own.  This  is  suffi- 
ciently developed  and  evidenced  by  her  successive 
strides  towards  the  usurpation  of  the  sea.  Mark 
them,  from  her  first  war  after  William  Pitt,  the 
little,  came  into  her  administration.  She  first 
forbade  to  neutrals  all  trade  with  her  enemies  in 
time  of  war,  which  they  had  not  in  time  of  peace. 
This  deprived  them  of  their  trade  from  port  to  port 
of  the  same  nation.  Then  she  forbade  them  to 
trade  from  the  port  of  one  nation  to  that  of  any 
other  at  war  with  her,  although  a  right  fully  exer- 


24o  Jefferson's  Works 

cised  in  time  of  peace.  Next,  instead  of  taking 
vessels  only  entering  a  blockaded  port,  she  took 
them  over  the  whole  ocean,  if  destined  to  that  port, 
although  ignorant  of  the  blockade,  and  without 
intention  to  violate  it.  Then  she  took  them  return- 
ing from  that  port,  as  if  infected  by  previous  infrac- 
tion of  blockade.  Then  came  her  paper  blockades, 
by  which  she  might  shut  up  the  whole  world  without 
sending  a  ship  to  sea,  except  to  take  all  those  sailing 
on  it,  as  they  must,  of  course,  be  bound  to  some 
port.  And  these  were  followed  by  her  orders  of 
council,  forbidding  every  nation  to  go  to  the  port 
of  any  other,  without  coming  first  to  some  port  of 
Great  Britain,  there  paying  a  tribute  to  her,  regu- 
lated by  the  cargo,  and  taking  from  her  a  license 
to  proceed  to  the  port  of  destination;  which  oper- 
ation the  vessel  was  to  repeat  with  the  return  cargo 
on  its  way  home.  According  to  these  orders,  we  could 
not  send  a  vessel  from  St.  Mary's  to  St.  Augustine, 
distant  six  hours'  sail  on  our  own  coast,  without 
crossing  the  Atlantic  four  times,  twice  with  the 
outward  cargo,  and  twice  with  the  inward.  She 
found  this  too  daring  and  outrageous  for  a  single 
step,  retracted  as  to  certain  articles  of  commerce, 
but  left  it  in  force  as  to  others  which  constitute 
important  branches  of  our  exports.  And  finally, 
that  her  views  may  no  longer  rest  on  inference,  in 
a  recent  debate  her  minister  declared  in  open  parlia- 
ment, that  the  object  of  the  present  war  is  a  monopoly 
of  commerce. 


Correspondence  241 

In  some  of  these  atrocities,  France  kept  pace  with 
her  fully  in  speculative  wrong,  which  her  impotence 
only  shortened  in  practical  execution.  This  was 
called  retaliation  by  both;  each  charging  the  other 
with  the  initiation  of  the  outrage.  As  if  two  com- 
batants might  retaliate  on  an  innocent  bystander, 
the  blows  they  received  from  each  other.  To  make 
war  on  both  would  have  been  ridiculous.  In  order, 
therefore,  to  single  out  an  enemy,  we  offered  to  both, 
that  if  either  would  revoke  its  hostile  decrees,  and 
the  other  should  refuse,  we  would  interdict  all  inter- 
course whatever  with  that  other;  which  would  be 
war  of  course,  as  being  an  avowed  departure  from 
neutrality.  France  accepted  the  offer,  and  revoked 
her  decrees  as  to  us.  England  not  only  refused, 
but  declared  by  a  solemn  proclamation  of  her  Prince 
Regent,  that  she  would  not  revoke  her  orders  even 
as  to  us,  until  those  of  France  should  be  annulled 
as  to  the %  whole  world.  We  thereon  declared  war, 
and  with  abundant  additional  cause. 

In  the  meantime,  an  examination  before  parlia- 
ment of  the  ruinous  effects  of  these  orders  on  her 
own  manufacturers,  exposing  them  to  the  nation 
and  to  the  world,  their  Prince  issued  a  palinodial 
proclamation,  suspending  the  orders  on  certain 
conditions,  but  claiming  to  renew  them  at  pleasure, 
as  a  matter  of  right.  Even  this  might  have  pre- 
vented the  war,  if  done  and  known  here  before  its 
declaration.  But  the  sword  being  once  drawn, 
the  expense  of  arming  incurred,  and  hostilities  in  full 

VOL.  XIII-16 


242  leKefsonVWbrks 

course,  it  would  have  been  unwise  to  discontinue 
them,  until  effectual  provision  should  be  agreed  to 
by  England,  for  protecting  our  citizens  on  the  high 
seas  from  impressment  by  her  naval  commanders, 
through  error,  voluntary  or  involuntary;  the  fact 
being  notorious,  that  these  officers,  entering  our 
ships  at  sea  under  pretext  of  searching  for  their 
seamen,  (which  they  have  no  right  to  do  by  the  law 
or  usage  of  nations,  which  they  neither  do,  nor  ever 
did,  as  to  any  other  nation  but  ours,  and  which  no 
nation  ever  before  pretended  to  do  in  any  case,) 
entering  our  ships,  I  say,  under  pretext  of  searching 
for  and  taking  out  their  seamen,  they  took  ours, 
native  as  well  as  naturalized,  knowing  them  to  be 
ours,  merely  because  they  wanted  them;  insomuch, 
that  no  American  could  safely  cross  the  ocean,  or 
venture  to  pass  by  sea  from  one  to  another  of  our 
own  ports.  It  is  not  long  since  they  impressed  at 
sea  two  nephews  of  General  Washington,  .returning 
from  Europe,  and  put  them,  as  common  seamen, 
under  the  ordinary  discipline  of  their  ships  of  war. 
There  are  certainly  other  wrongs  to  be  settled  between 
England  and  us ;  but  of  a  minor  character,  and  such 
as  a  proper  spirit  of  conciliation  on  both  sides  would 
not  permit  to  continue  them  at  war.  The  sword, 
however,  can  never  again  be  sheathed,  until  the 
personal  safety  of  an  American  on  the  ocean,  among 
the  most  important  and  most  vital  of  the  rights  we 
possess,  is  completely  provided  for. 

As  soon  as  we  heard  of  her  partial  repeal  of  her 


» 

Correspondence  243 

orders  of  council,  we  offered  instantly  to  suspend 
hostilities  by  an  armistice,  if  she  would  suspend  her 
impressments,  and  meet  us  in  arrangements  for 
securing  our  citizens  against  them.  She  refused 
to  do  it,  because  impracticable  by  any  arrangement,  < 
as  she  pretends ;  but,  in  truth,  because  a  body  of  sixty  , 
to  eighty  thousand  of  the  finest  seamen  in  the  world, 
which  we  possess,  is  too  great  a  resource  for  manning 
her  exaggerated  navy,  to  be  relinquished,  as  long  as 
she  can  keep  it  open.  Peace  is  in  her  hand,  when- 
ever she  will  renounce  the  practice  of  aggression  on 
the  persons  of  our  citizens.  If  she  thinks  it  worth 
eternal  war,  eternal  war  we  must  have.  She  alleges 
that  the  sameness  of  language,  of  manners,  of  appear- 
ance, renders  it  impossible  to  distinguish  us  from  her 
subjects.  But  because  we  speak  English,  and  look 
like  them,  are  we  to  be  punished?  Are  free  and 
independent  men  to  be  submitted  to  their  bondage? 
England  has  misrepresented  to  all  Europe  this 
ground  of  the  war.  She  has  called  it  a  new  pre- 
tension, set  up  since  the  repeal  of  her  orders  of 
council.  She  knows  there  has  never  been  a  moment 
of  suspension  of  our  reclamation  against  it,  from 
General  Washington's  time  inclusive,  to  the  present 
day ;  and  that  it  is  distinctly  stated  in  our  declaration 
of  war,  as  one  of  its  principal  causes.  She  has  pre- 
tended we  have  entered  into  the  war  to  establish 
the  principle  of  "free  bottoms,  free  goods,"  or  to 
protect  her  seamen  against  her  own  rights  over 
them.     We    contend    for    neither    of    these.     She 


244  Jefferson's  Works 

pretends  we  are  partial  to  France;  that  we  have 
observed  a  fraudulent  and  unfaithful  neutrality 
between  her  and  her  enemy.  She  knows  this  to  be 
false,  and  that  if  there  has  been  any  inequality  in 
our  proceedings  towards  the  belligerents,  it  has  been 
in  her  favor.  Her  ministers  are  in  possession  of 
full  proofs  of  this.  Our  accepting  at  once,  and 
sincerely,  the  mediation  of  the  virtuous  Alexander, 
their  greatest  friend,  and  the  most  aggravated 
enemy  of  Bonaparte,  sufficiently  proves  whether 
we  have  partialities  on  the  side  of  her  enemy.  I 
sincerely  pray  that  this  mediation  may  produce  a 
just  peace.  It  will  prove  that  the  immortal  char- 
acter, which  has  first  stopped  by  war  the  career  of 
the  destroyer  of  mankind,  is  the  friend  of  peace, 
of  justice,  of  human  happiness,  and  the  patron  of 
unoffending  and  injured  nations.  He  is  too  honest 
and  impartial  to  countenance  propositions  of  peace 
derogatory  to  the  freedom  of  the  seas. 

Shall  I  apologize  to  you  my  dear  Madam,  for  this 
long  political  letter?  But  yours  justifies  the  sub- 
ject, and  my  feelings  must  plead  for  the  unreserved 
expression  of  them;  and  they  have  been  the  less 
reserved,  as  being  from  a  private  citizen,  retired 
from  all  connection  with  the  government  of  his 
country,  and  whose  ideas,  expressed  without  com- 
munication with  any  one,  are  neither  known,  nor 
imputable  to  them. 

The  dangers  of  the  sea  are  now  so  great,  and  the 
possibilities  of  interception  by  sea  and  land  such, 


Correspondence  245 

that  I  shall  subscribe  no  name  to  this  letter.  You 
will  know  from  whom  it  comes,  by  its  reference  to 
the  date  of  time  and  place  of  yours,  as  well  as  by 
its  subject  in  answer  to  that.  This  omission  must 
not  lessen  in  your  view  the  assurances  of  my  great 
esteem,  of  my  sincere  sympathies  for  the  share  which 
you  bear  in  "the  afflictions  of  your  country,  and  the 
deprivation  to  which  a  lawless  will  has  subjected 
you.  In  return,  you  enjoy  the  dignified  satisfaction 
of  having  met  them,  rather  than  be  yoked  with  the 
abject,  to  his  car;  and  that,  in  withdrawing  from 
oppression,  you  have  followed  the  virtuous  example 
of  a  father  whose  name  will  ever  be  dear  to  your 
country  and  to  mankind.  With  my  prayers  that 
you  may  be  restored  to  it,  that  you  may  see  it 
re-established  in  that  temperate  portion  of  liberty 
which  does  not  infer  either  anarchy  or  licentiousness, 
in  that  high  degree  of  prosperity  which  would  be  the 
consequence  of  such  a  government,  in  that,  in  short, 
which  the  constitution  of  1789  would  have  insured  it, 
if  wisdom  could  have  stayed  at  that  point  the  fervid 
but  imprudent  zeal  of  men,  who  did  not  know  the 
character  of  their  own  countrymen,  and  that  you 
may  long  live  in  health  and  happiness  under  it,  and 
leave  to  the  world  a  well-educated  and  virtuous 
representative  and  descendant  of  your  honored 
father,  is  the  ardent  prayer  of  the  sincere  and 
respectful  friend  who  writes  this  letter. 


246  Correspondence 

TO   JOHN    ADAMS. 

Monticello,  May  27,  1813. 

Another  of  our  friends  of  seventy-six  is  gone,  my 
dear  Sir,  another  of  the  co-signers  of  the  Independ- 
ence of  our  country.  And  a  better  man  than  Rush 
could  not  have  left  us,  more  benevolent,  more 
learned,  of  finer  genius,  or  more  honest.  We  too 
must  go ;  and  that  ere  long.  I  believe  we  are  under 
half  a  dozen  at  present;  I  mean  the  signers  of  the 
Declaration.  Yourself,  Gerry,  Carroll,  and  myself, 
are  all  I  know  to  be  living.  I  am  the  only  one  south 
of  the  Potomac.  Is  Robert  Treat  Payne,  or  Floyd 
living?  It  is  long  since  I  heard  of  them,  and  yet  I 
do  not  recollect  to  have  heard  of  their  deaths. 

Moreton's  deduction  of  the  origin  of  our  Indians 
from  the  fugitive  Trojans,  stated  in  your  letter  of 
January  the  26th,  and  his  manner  of  accounting  for 
the  sprinkling  of  their  Latin  with  Greek,  is  really 
amusing.  Adair  makes  them  talk  Hebrew.  Remold 
Foster  derives  them  from  the  soldiers  sent  by  Kouli 
Khan  to  conquer  Japan.  Brerewood,  from  the 
Tartars,  as  well  as  our  bears,  wolves,  foxes,  etc., 
which,  he  says,  "  must  of  necessity  fetch  their  begin- 
ning from  Noah's  ark,  which  rested,  after  the  deluge 
in  Asia,  seeing  they  could  not  proceed  by  the  course 
of  nature,  as  the  imperfect  sort  of  living  creatures 
do,  from  putrefaction."  Bernard  Romans  is  of 
opinion  that  God  created  an  original  man  and 
woman  in  this  part  of  the  globe.     Doctor  Barton 


Jefferson's  Works  247 

thinks  they  are  not  specifically  different  from  the 
Persians;  but,  taking  afterwards  a  broader  range, 
he  thinks,  "  that  in  all  the  vast  countries  of  America, 
there  is  but  one  language,  nay,  that  it  may  be  proven, 
or  rendered  highly  probable,  that  all  the  languages 
of  the  earth  bear  some  affinity  together."  This 
reduces  it  to  a  question  of  definition,  in  which  every 
one  is  free  to  use  his  own:  to  wit,  what  constitutes 
identity,  or  difference  in  two  things,  in  the  common 
acceptation  of  sameness?  All  languages  may  be 
called  the  same,  as  being  all  made  up  of  the  same 
primitive  sounds,  expressed  by  the  letters  of  the 
different  alphabets.  But,  in  this  sense,  all  things 
on  earth  are  the  same  as  consisting  of  matter.  This 
gives  up  the  useful  distribution  into  genera  and 
species,  which  we  form,  arbitrarily  indeed,  for  the 
relief  of  our  imperfect  memories.  To  aid  the  ques- 
tion, from  whence  our  Indian  tribes  descended, 
some  have  gone  into  their  religion,  their  morals, 
their  manners,  customs,  habits,  and  physical  forms. 
By  such  helps  it  may  be  learnedly  proved,  that  our 
trees  and  plants  of  every  kind  are  descended  from 
those  of  Europe;  because,  like  them,  they  have  no 
locomotion,  they  draw  nourishment  from  the  earth, 
they  clothe  themselves  with  leaves  in  spring,  of 
which  they  divest  themselves  in  autumn  for  the 
sleep  of  winter,  etc.  Our  animals  too  must  be 
descended  from  those  of  Europe,  because  our  wolves 
eat  lambs,  our  deer  are  gregarious,  our  ants  hoard, 
etc.     But,  when  for  convenience  we  distribute  Ian- 


24^  Correspondence 

guages,  according  to  common  understanding,  into 
classes  originally  different,  as  we  choose  to  consider 
them,  as  the  Hebrew,  the  Greek,  the  Celtic,  the 
Gothic;  and  these  again  into  genera,  or  families,  as 
the  Icelandic,  German,  Swedish,  Danish,  English, 
and  these  last  into  species,  or  dialects,  as  English, 
Scotch,  Irish,  we  then  ascribe  other  meanings  to  the 
terms  "same"  and  "  different."  In  some  one  of 
these  senses,  Barton,  and  Adair,  and  Foster,  and 
Brerewood,  and  Moreton,  may  be  right,  every  one 
according  to  his  own  definition  of  what  constitutes 
" identity."  Romans,  indeed,  takes  a  higher  stand, 
and  supposes  a  separate  creation.  On  the  same 
unscriptural  ground,  he  had  but  to  mount  one  step 
higher,  to  suppose  no  creation  at  all,  but  that  all 
things  have  existed  without  beginning  in  time,  as 
they  now  exist,  and  may  forever  exist,  producing 
and  reproducing  in  a  circle,  without  end.  This 
would  very  summarily  dispose  of  Mr.  Moreton 's 
learning,  and  show  that  the  question  of  Indian 
origin,  like  many  others,  pushed  to  a  certain  height 
must  receive  the  same  answer,  "  Ignoro." 

You  ask  if  the  usage  of  hunting  in  circles  has  ever 
been  known  among  any  of  our  tribes  of  Indians? 
It  has  been  practised  by  them  all;  and  is  to  this 
day,  by  those-  still  remote  from  the  settlements  of 
the  whites.  But  their  numbers  not  enabling  them, 
like  Genghis  Khan's  seven  hundred  thousand,  to 
form  themselves  into  circles  of  one  hundred  miles 
diameter,  they  make  their  circle  by  firing  the  leaves 


Correspondence  249 

fallen  on  the  ground,  which  gradually  forcing  the 
animals  to  a  centre,  they  there  slaughter  them  with 
arrows,  darts,  and  other  missiles.  This  is  called  fire 
hunting,  and  has  been  practised  in  this  State  within 
my  time,  by  the  white  inhabitants.  This  is  the 
most  probable  cause  of  the  origin  and  extension  of 
the  vast  prairies  in  the  western  country,  where  the 
grass  having  been  of  extraordinary  luxuriance,  has 
made  a  conflagration  sufficient  to  kill  even  the  old 
as  well  as  the  young  timber. 

I  sincerely  congratulate  you  on  the  successes  of 
our  little  navy;   which  must  be  more  gratifying  to 
you  than  to  most  men,  as  having  been  the  early  and 
constant    advocate    of    wooden    walls.     If    I    have 
differed  with  you  on  this  ground,  it  was  not  on  the 
principle,  but  the  time;    supposing  that  we  cannot 
build  or  maintain  a  navy,  which  will  not  immediately 
fall  into  the  same  gulf  which  has  swallowed  not  only 
the  minor  navies,  but  even  those  of  the  great  second- 
rate  powers  of  the  sea.     Whenever  these  can  be 
resuscitated,  and  brought  so  near  to  a  balance  with 
England  that  we  can  turn  the  scale,  then  is  my 
epoch  for  aiming  at  a  navy.     In  the  meantime,  one 
competent  to  keep  the  Barbary  States  in  order,  is 
necessary;   these  being  the  only  smaller  powers  dis- 
posed to  quarrel  with  us.     But  I  respect  too  much 
the  weighty  opinions  of  others,  to  be  unyielding  on 
this  point,  and  acquiesce  with  the  prayer  "quod  felix 
faustumque  sit;"   adding  ever  a  sincere  one  for  your 
health  and  happiness. 


2  so  Jeff erson  ^  Works 


TO    COLONEL   JAMES    MONROE. 

Monticello,  May  30,  1813. 

Dear  Sir, — I  thank  you  for  the  communication  of 
the  President's  Message,  which  has  not  yet  reached 
us  through  the  public  papers.  It  is  an  interesting 
document,  always  looked  for  with  anxiety,  and  the 
late  one  is  equally  able  as  interesting.  I  hope  Con- 
gress will  act  in  conformity  with  it,  in  all  its  parts. 
The  unwarrantable  ideas  often  expressed  in  the 
newspapers,  and  by  persons  who  ought  to  know 
better,  that  I  intermeddle  in  the  Executive  councils, 
and  the  indecent  expressions,  sometimes,  of  a  hope 
that  Mr.  Madison  will  pursue  the  principles  of  my 
administration,  expressions  so  disrespectful  to  his 
known  abilities  and  dispositions,  have  rendered  it 
improper  in  me  to  hazard  suggestions  to  him,  on 
occasions  even  where  ideas  might  occur  to  me,  that 
might  accidentally  escape  him.  This  reserve  has 
been  strengthened,  too,  by  a  consciousness  that  my 
views  must  be  very  imperfect,  from  the  want  of  a 
correct  knowledge  of  the  whole  ground. 

I  lately,  however,  hazarded  to  him  a  suggestion  on 
the  defence  of  the  Chesapeake,  because,  although 
decided  on  provisionally  with  the  Secretaries  of  War 
and  the  Navy  formerly,  yet  as  it  was  proposed  only 
in  the  case  of  war,  which  did  not  actually  arise,  and 
not  relating  to  his  department,  might  not  then  have 
been  communicated  to  him.  Of  this  fact  my  memory 
did  not  ascertain  me.     I  will  now  hazard  another 


Correspondence  2  5 * 

suggestion  to  yourself,  which  indeed  grows  out  of 
that  one:  it  is,  the  policy  of  keeping  our  frigates 
together  in  a  body,  in  some  place  where  they  can 
be  defended  against  a  superior  naval  force,  and  from 
whence,  nevertheless,  they  can  easily  sally  forth  on 
the  shortest  warning.  This  would  oblige  the  enemy 
to  take  stations,  or  to  cruise  only  in  masses  equal  at 
least,  each  of  them,  to  our  whole  force ;  and  of  course 
they  could  be  acting  only  in  two  or  three  spots  at  a 
time,  and  the  whole  of  our  coast,  except  the  two  or 
three  portions  where  they  might  be  present,  would 
be  open  to  exportation  and  importation.  I  think 
all  that  part  of  the  United  States  over  which  the 
waters  of  the  Chesapeake  spread  themselves,  was 
blockaded  in  the  early  season  by  a  single  ship.  This 
would  keep  our  frigates  in  entire  safety,  as  they 
would  go  out  only  occasionally  to  oppress  a  blockad- 
ing force  known  to  be  weaker  than  themselves,  and 
thus  make  them  a  real  protection  to  our  whole 
commerce.  And  it  seems  to  me  that  this  would  be 
a  more  essential  service,  than  that  of  going  out  by 
ones,  or  twos,  in  search  of  adventures,  which  con- 
tribute little  to  the  protection  of  our  commerce,  and 
not  at  all  to  the  defence  of  our  coast,  or  the  shores 
of  our  inland  waters.  A  defence  of  these  by  militia 
is  most  harassing  to  them.  The  applications  from 
Maryland,  which  I  have  seen  in  the  papers,  and  those 
from  Virginia,  which  I  suspect,  merely  because  I  see 
such  masses  of  the  militia  called  off  from  their  farms, 
must  be  embarrassing  to  the  Executive,  not  only 


zs2  Jefferson's  Works 

from  a  knowledge  of  the  incompetency  of  such  a 
mode  of  defence,  but  from  the  exhausture  of  funds 
which  ought  to  be  husbanded  for  the  effectual 
operations  of  a  long  war.  I  fear,  too,  it  will  render 
the  militia  discontented,  perhaps  clamorous  for  an 
end  of  the  war  on  any  terms.  I  am  happy  to  see 
that  it  is  entirely  popular  as  yet,  and  that  no  symp- 
tom of  flinching  from  it  appears  among  the  people, 
as  far  as  I  can  judge  from  the  public  papers,  or  from 
my  own  observation,  limited  to  the  few  counties 
adjacent  to  the  two  branches  of  James  river.  I  have 
such  confidence  that  what  I  suggest  has  been  already 
maturely  discussed  in  the  Cabinet,  and  that  for 
wise  and  sufficient  reasons  the  present  mode  of 
employing  the  frigates  is  the  best,  that  I  hesitate 
about  sending  this  even  after  having  written.  Yet 
in  that  case  it  will  only  have  given  you  the  trouble 
of  reading  it.  You  will  bury  it  in  your  own  breast, 
as  non-avenue,  and  see  in  it  only  an  unnecessary  zeal 
on  my  part,  and  a  proof  of  the  unlimited  confidence 
of  yours  ever  and  affectionately. 


TO    JOHN    ADAMS. 

Monticello,  June  15,  1813. 
Dear  Sir, — I  wrote  you  a  letter  on  the  27th  of 
May,  which  probably  would  reach  you  about  the 
3d  instant,  and  on  the  9th  I  received  yours  of  the 
29th  of  May.  Of  Lindsay's  Memoirs  I  had  never 
before  heard,   and  scarcely  indeed  of  himself.     It 


Correspondence  253 

could  not,  therefore,  but  be  unexpected,  that  two 
letters  of  mine  should  have  anything  to  do  with  his 
life.  The  name  of  his  editor  was  new  to  me,  and 
certainly  presents  itself  for  the  first  time  under 
unfavorable  circumstances.  Religion,  I  suppose,  is 
the  scope  of  his  book;  and  that  a  writer  on  that 
subject  should  usher  himself  to  the  world  in  the  very 
act  of  the  grossest  abuse  of  confidence,  by  publishing 
private  letters  which  passed  between  two  friends, 
with  no  views  to  their  ever  being  made  public,  is  an 
instance  of  inconsistency  as  well  as  of  infidelity,  of 
which  I  would  rather  be  the  victim  than  the  author. 
By  your  kind  quotation  of  the  dates  of  my  two 
letters,  I  have  been  enabled  to  turn  to  them.  They 
had  completely  vanished  from  my  memory.  The 
last  is  on  the  subject  of  religion,  and  by  its  publica- 
tion will  gratify  the  priesthood  with  new  occasion  of 
repeating  their  comminations  against  me.  They 
wTish  it  to  be  believed  that  he  can  have  no  religion 
who  advocates  its  freedom.  This  was  not  the  doc- 
trine of  Priestley ;  and  I  honored  him  for  the  example 
of  liberality  he  set  to  his  order.  The  first  letter  is 
political.  It  recalls  to  our  recollection  the  gloomy 
transactions  of  the  times,  the  doctrines  they  wit- 
nessed, and  the  sensibilities  they  excited.  It  was  a 
confidential  communication  of  reflections  on  these 
from  one  friend  to  another,  deposited  in  his  bosom, 
and  never  meant  to  trouble  the  public  mind. 
Whether  the  character  of  the  times  is  justly  por- 
trayed or  not,  posterity  will  decide,    But  on  one 


2 54  Jefferson's  Works 

feature  of  them  they  can  never  decide,  the  sensations 
excited  in  free  yet  firm  minds  by  the  terrorism  of 
the  day.  None  can  conceive  who  did  not  witness 
them,  and  they  were  felt  by  one  party  only.  This 
letter  exhibits  their  side  of  the  medal.  The  fed- 
eralists, no  doubt,  have  presented  the  other  in  their 
private  correspondences  as  well  as  open  action.  If 
these  correspondences  should  ever  be  laid  open  to 
the  public  eye,  they  will  probably  be  found  not 
models  of  comity  towards  their  adversaries.  The 
readers  of  my  letter  should  be  cautioned  not  to 
confine  its  view  to  this  country  alone.  England  and 
its  ala  mists  were  equally  under  consideration.  Still 
less  must  they  consider  it  as  looking  personally 
towards  you.  You  happen,  indeed,  to  be  quoted, 
because  you  happen  d  to  express  more  pithily  than 
had  been  done  by  themselves,  one  of  the  mottoes  of 
the  party.  This  was  in  your  answer  to  the  address 
of  the  young  men  of  Philadelphia.  [See  Selection  of 
Patriotic  Addresses,  page  198.]  One  of  the  ques- 
tions, you  know,  on  which  our  parties  took  different 
sides,  was  on  the  improvability  of  the  human  mind 
in  science,  in  ethics,  in  government,  etc.  Those  who 
advocated  reformation  of  institutions,  pari  passu 
with  the  progress  of  science,  maintained  that  no 
definite  limits  could  be  assigned  to  that  progress. 
The  enemies  of  reform,  on  the  other  hand,  denied 
improvement,  and  advocated  steady  adherence  to 
the  principles,  practices  and  institutions  of  our 
fathers,  which  they  represented  as  the  consummation 


Correspondence  255 

of  wisdom,  and  acme  of  excellence,  beyond  which  the 
human  mind  could  never  advance.  Although  in  the 
passage  of  your  answer  alluded  to,  you  expressly 
disclaim  the  wish  to  influence  the  freedom  of  inquiry, 
you  predict  that  that  will  produce  nothing  more 
worthy  of  transmission  to  posterity  than  the  prin- 
ciples, institutions  and  systems  of  education  received 
from  their  ancestors.  I  do  not  consider  this  as  your 
deliberate  opinion.  You  possess,  yourself,  too  much 
science,  not  to  see  how  much  is  still  ahead  of  you, 
unexplained  and  unexplored.  Your  own  conscious- 
ness must  place  you  as  far  before  our  ancestors  as 
in  the  rear  of  our  posterity.  I  consider  it  as  an 
expression  lerit  to  the  prejudices  of  your  friends; 
and  although  I  happened  to  cite  it  from  you,  the 
whole  letter  shows  I  had  them  only  in  view.  In 
truth,  my  dear  Sir,  we  were  far  from  considering 
you  as  the  author  of  all  the  measures  we  blamed. 
They  were  placed  under  the  protection  of  your  name, 
but  we  were  satisfied  they  wanted  much  of  your  ap- 
probation. We  ascribed  them  to  their  real  authors, 
the  Pickerings,  the  Wolcotts,  the  Tracys,  the  Sedg- 
wicks,  et  id  genus  omne,  with  whom  we  supposed 
you  in  a  state  of  duresse.  I  well  remember  a  con- 
versation with  you  in  the  morning  of  the  day  on 
which  you  nominated  to  the  Senate  a  substitute  for 
Pickering,  in  which  you  expressed  a  just  impatience 
under  ''the  legacy  of  secretaries  which  General 
Washington  had  left  you,"  and  whom  you  seemed, 
therefore,   to  consider  as  under  public  protection. 


256  Jefferson's  Works 

Many  other  incidents  showed  how  differently  you 
would  have  acted  with  less  impassioned  advisers; 
and  subsequent  events  have  proved  that  your  minds 
were  not  together.  You  would  do  me  great  injustice, 
therefore,  by  taking  to  yourself  what  was  intended 
for  men  who  were  then  your  secret,  as  they  are  now 
your  open  enemies.  Should  you  write  on  the  sub- 
ject, as  you  propose,  I  am  sure  we  shall  see  you  place 
yourself  farther  from  them  than  from  us. 

As  to  myself,  I  shall  take  no  part  in  any  discus- 
sions. I  leave  others  to  judge  of  what  I  have  done, 
and  to  give  me  exactly  that  place  which  they  shall 
think  I  have  occupied.  Marshall  has  written  libels 
on  one  side;  others,  I  suppose,  wil  be  written  on 
the  other  side;  and  the  world  will  sift  both  and 
separate  the  truth  as  well  as  they  can.  I  should  see 
with  reluctance  the  passions  of  that  day  rekindled 
in  this,  while  so  many  of  the  actors  are  living,  and 
all  are  too  near  the  scene  not  to  participate  in  sym- 
pathies with  them.  About  facts  you  and  I  cannot 
differ;  because  truth  is  our  mutual  guide.  And  if 
any  opinions  you  may  express  should  be  different 
from  mine,  I  shall  receive  them  with  the  liberality 
and  indulgence  which  I  ask  for  my  own,  and  still 
cherish  with  warmth  the  sentiments  of  affectionate 
respect,  of  which  I  can  with  so  much  truth  tender 
you  the  assurance. 


Correspondence  257 

TO    WILLIAM    SHORT. 

Monticello,  June  18,  1813. 

Dear  Sir, — Yours  of  the  2d  is  received,  and  a 
copy  of  Higgenbotham's  mortgage  is  now  enclosed. 
The  journey  to  Bedford  which  I  proposed  in  my  last 
my  engagements  here  have  obliged  me  to  postpone 
till  after  harvest,  which  is  now  approaching;  it  is 
the  most  unpromising  one  I  have  seen.  We  have 
been  some  days  in  expectation  of  seeing  M.  Correa. 
If  he  is  on  the  road,  he  has  had  some  days  of  our 
very  hottest  weather.  My  thermometer  has  been 
for  two  days  at  92  and  92J0,  the  last  being  the 
maximum  ever  seen  here.  Although  we  usually 
have  the  hottest  day  of  the  year  in  June,  yet  it  is  soon 
interrupted  by  cooler  weather.  In  July  the  heat, 
though  not  so  great,  is  more  continuous  and  steady. 

On  the  duration  of  the  war  I  think  there  is  uncer- 
tainty. Ever  since  the  rupture  of  the  treaty  of 
Amiens,  the  object  of  Great  Britain  has  visibly  been 
the  permanent  conquest  of  the  ocean,  and  levying 
a  tribute  on  every  vessel  she  permits  to  sail  on  it, 
as  the  Barbary  powers  do  on  the  Mediterranean, 
which  they  call  their  sea.  She  must  be  conscious 
she  cannot  from  her  own  resources  maintain  the 
exaggerated  fleet  she  now  has,  and  which  is  neces- 
sary to  maintain  her  conquest;  she  must,  there- 
fore, levy  the  deficiency  of  duties  of  transit  on  other 
nations.  If  she  should  get  another  ministry  with 
sense   enough   to   abandon    this   senseless   scheme, 

the  war  with  us  ought  to  be  short,  because  there 
YOL.  xin — 17 


2  58  leff erson's  Works 

is  no  material  cause  now  existing  but  impressment; 
and  there  our  only  difference  is  how  to  establish  a 
mode  of  discrimination  between  our  citizens  which 
she  does  not  claim,  and  hers  which  it  is  neither 
our  wish  nor  interest  ever  to  employ.  The  seamen 
which  our  navigation  raises  had  better  be  of  our 
own.  If  this  be  all  she  aims  at,  it  may  be  settled 
at  Saint  Petersburg.  My  principle  has  ever  been 
that  war  should  not  suspend  either  exports  or  im- 
ports. If  the  piracies  of  France  and  England,  how- 
ever, are  to  be  adopted  as  the  law  of  nations,  or 
should  become  their  p  actice,  it  will  oblige  us  to 
manufacture  at  home  all  the  material  comforts. 

This  may  furnish  a  reason  to  check  imports  until 
necessary  manufactures  are  established  among  us. 
This  offers  the  advantage,  too,  of  placing  the  con- 
sumer of  our  produce  near  the  producer,  but  I 
should  disapprove  of  the  prohibition  of  exports 
even  to  the  enemy  themselves,  except  indeed  re- 
freshments and  water  to  their  cruisers  on  our  coast, 
in  order  to  oblige  them  to  intermit  their  cruises  to 
go  elsewhere  for  these  supplies.  The  idea  of  starv- 
ing them  as  to  bread,  is  a  very  idle  one.  It  is 
dictated  by  passion,  not  by  reason.  If  the  war  is 
lengthened  we  shall  take  Canada,  which  will  relieve 
us  from  Indians,  and  Halifax,  which  will  put  an 
end  to  their  occupation  of  the  American  seas,  be- 
cause every  vessel  must  then  go  to  England  to 
repair  every  accident.  To  retain  these  would  become 
objects  of  first  importance  to  us,  and  of  great  im- 


Correspondence  259 

portance  to  Europe,  as  the  means  of  curtailing  the 
British  marine.  But  at  present,  being  merely  in 
posse,  they  should  not  be  an  impediment  to  peace. 
We  have  a  great  and  a  just  claim  of  indemnifi- 
cations against  them  for  the  thousand  ships  they 
have  taken  piratically,  and  six  thousand  seamen 
impressed.  Whether  we  can,  on  this  score,  suc- 
cessfully insist  on  curtailing  their  American  pos- 
sessions, by  the  meridian  of  Lake  Huron,  so  as  to 
cut  them  off  from  the  Indians  bordering  on  us, 
would  be  matter  for  conversation  and  experiment 
at  the  treaty  of  pacification.  I  sometimes  allow 
my  mind  to  wander  thus  into  the  political  field, 
but  rarely,  and  with  reluctance.  It  is  my  desire 
as  well  as  my  duty  to  leave  to  the  vigor  of  younger 
minds  to  settle  concerns  which  are  no  longer  mine, 
but  must  long  be  theirs.     Affectionately  adieu. 


TO    THE    PRESIDENT    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 
(JAMES    MADISON). 

Monticello,  June  18,  1813. 

Your  kind  answer  of  the  16th  entirely  satisfies 
my  doubts  as  to  the  employment  of  the  navy,  if 
kept  within  striking  distance  of  our  coast;  and 
shows  how  erroneous  views  are  apt  to  be  with  those 
who  have  not  all  in  view.  Yet  as  I  know  from 
experience  that  profitable  suggestions  sometimes 
come  from  lookers  on,  they  may  be  usefully  toler- 
ated, provided  they  do  not  pretend  to  the  right  of 


26o  Jefferson's  Works 

an  answer.  They  would  cost  very  dear  indeed 
were  they  to  occupy  the  time  of  a  high  officer  in 
writing  when  he  should  be  acting.  I  intended  no 
such  trouble  to  you,  my  dear  Sir,  and  were  you  to 
suppose  I  expected  it,  I  must  cease  to  offer  a  thought 
on  our  public  affairs.  Although  my  entire  confi- 
dence in  their  direction  prevents  my  reflecting  on 
them  but  accidentally,  yet  sometimes  facts,  and 
sometimes  ideas  occur,  which  I  hazard  as  worth 
the  trouble  of  reading  but  not  of  answering.  Of 
this  kind  was  my  suggestion  of  the  facts  which  I 
recollected  as  to  the  defence  of  the  Chesapeake, 
and  of  what  had  been  contemplated  at  the  time 
between  the  Secretaries  of  War  and  the  Navy  and 
myself.  If  our  views  were  sound,  the  object  might 
be  effected  in  one  year,  even  of  war,  and  at  an  ex- 
pense which  is  nothing  compared  to  the  population 
and  productions  it  would  cover.  We  are  here  labor- 
ing under  the  most  extreme  drought  ever  remem- 
bered at  this  season.  We  have  had  but  one  rain 
to  lay  the  dust  in  two  months.  That  was  a  good 
one,  but  was  three  weeks  ago.  Corn  is  but  a  few 
inches  high  and  dying.  Oats  will  not  yield  their 
seed.  Of  wheat,  the  hard  winter  and  fly  leave  us 
about  two-thirds  of  an  ordinary  crop.  So  that  in 
the  lotteries  of  human  life  you  see  that  even  farm- 
ing is  but  gambling.  We  have  had  three  days  of 
excessive  heat.  The  thermometer  on  the  16th 
was  at  920,  on  the  17th  92^°,  and  yesterday  at  930. 

It  had  never  before  exceeded  92 J  at  this  place;  at 


Correspondence  261 

least  within  the  periods  of  my  observations.     Ever 
and  affectionately  yours. 


TO    COLONEL    JAMES    MONROE. 

Monticello,  June  18,   1813. 

Dear  Sir — Your  favors  of  the  7th  and  16th  are 
received,  and  I  now  return  you  the  memoir  en- 
closed in  the  former  I  am  much  gratified  by  its 
communication,  because,  as  the  plan  appeared  in 
the  newspapers  soon  after  the  new  Secretary  of 
War  came  into  office,  we  had  given  him  the  credit 
of  it.  Every  line  of  it  is  replete  with  wisdom; 
and  we  might  lament  that  our  tardy  enlistments 
prevented  its  execution,  were  we  not  to  reflect  that 
these  proceeded  from  the  happiness  of  our  people 
at  home.  It  is  more  a  subject  of  joy  that  we  have 
so  few  of  the  desperate  characters  which  compose 
modern  regular  armies.  But  it  proves  more  forci- 
bly the  necessity  of  obliging  every  citizen  to  be  a 
soldier;  this  was  the  case  with  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  and  must  be  that  of  every  free  State. 
Where  there  is  no  oppression  there  will  be  no  pauper 
hirelings.  We  must  train  and  classify  the  whole 
of  our  male  citizens,  and  make  military  instruction 
a  regular  part  of  collegiate  education.  We  can 
never  be  safe  till  this  is  done. 

I  have  been  persuaded,  ab  initio,  that  what  we 
are  to  do  in  Canada  must  be  done  quickly ;  because 
our  enemy,  with  a  little  time,  can  empty  pickpockets 


262  Jefferson's  Works 

upon  us  faster  than  we  can  enlist  honest  men 
to  oppose  them.  If  we  fail  in  this  acquisition, 
Hull  is  the  cause  of  it.  Pike,  in  his  situation, 
would  have  swept  their  posts  to  Montreal,  because 
his  army  would  have  grown  as  it  went  along.  I 
fear  the  reinforcements  arrived  at  Quebec  will  be 
at  Montreal  before  General  Dearborn,  and  if  so, 
the  game  is  up.  If  the  marching  of  the  militia 
into  an  enemy's  country  be  once  ceded  as  uncon- 
stitutional (which  I  hope  it  never  will  be),  then 
will  their  force,  as  now  strengthened,  bid  us  per- 
manent defiance.  Could  we  acquire  that  country, 
we  might  perhaps  insist  successfully  at  St.  Peters- 
burg on  retaining  all  westward  of  the  meridian  of 
Lake  Huron,  or  of  Ontario,  or  of  Montreal,  accord- 
ing to  the  pulse  of  the  place,  as  an  indemnification 
for  the  past  and  security  for  the  future.  To  cut 
them  off  from  the  Indians  even  west  of  the  Huron 
would  be  a  great  future  security. 

Your  kind  answer  of  the  16th,  entirely  satisfies 
my  doubts  as  to  the  employment  of  a  navy,  if  kept 
within  striking  distance  of  our  coast,  and  shows 
how  erroneous  views  are  apt  to  be  with  those  who 
j  have  not  all  in  view.  Yet,  as  I  know  by  experi- 
ence that  profitable  suggestions  sometimes  come 
from  lookers  on,  they  may  be  usefully  tolerated, 
provided  they  do  not  pretend  to  the  right  of  an 
answer.  They  would  cost  very  dear,  indeed,  were 
they  to  occupy  the  time  of  a  high  officer  in  writing 
when  he  should  be  acting. 


Correspondence  263 

TO    MATTHEW    CARR. 

Monticello,  June  19,  1813. 
Sir, — I  thank  you  for  the  copy  of  Mr.  Clarke's 
sketches  of  the  naval  history  of  the  United  States, 
which  you  have  been  so  kind  as  to  send  me.  It  is 
a  convenient  repository  of  cases  of  that  class,  and 
has  brought  to  my  recollection  a  number  of  indi- 
vidual cases  of  the  Revolutionary  war  which  had 
escaped  me.  I  received,  also,  one  of  Mr.  Clarke's 
circulars,  asking  supplementary  communications 
for  a  second  edition.  But  these  things  are  so 
much  out  of  the  reach  of  my  inland  situation,  that 
I  am  the  least  able  of  all  men  to  contribute  any- 
thing to  his  desire.  I  will  indulge  myself,  there- 
fore, in  two  or  three  observations,  of  which  you 
will  make  what  use  you  may  think  they  merit. 
1.  Bushnel's  Turtle  is  mentioned  slightly.  Would 
the  description  of  the  machine  be  too  much  for 
the  sale  of  the  work?  It  may  be  found  very  minutely 
given  in  the  American  Philosophical  transactions. 
It  was  excellently  contrived,  and  might  perhaps,  by 
improvement,  be  brought  into  real  use.  I  do  not 
know  the  difference  between  this  and  Mr.  Fulton's 
submarine  boat.  But  an  effectual  machine  of  that 
kind  is  not  beyond  the  laws  of  nature;  and  what- 
ever is  within  these,  is  not  to  be  despaired  of.  It 
would  be  to  the  United  States  the  consummation 
of  their  safety.  2.  The  account  of  the  loss  of  the 
Philadelphia,  does  not  give  a  fair  impression  of  the 


2  64  Jefferson's  Works 

transaction.  The  proofs  may  be  seen  among  the 
records  of  the  Navy  Office.  After  this  loss,  Captain 
Bainbridge  had  a  character  to  redeem.  He  has 
done  it  most  honorably,  and  no  one  is  more  grati- 
fied by  it  than  myself.  But  still  the  transaction 
ought  to  be  correctly  stated.  3.  But  why  omit 
all  mention  of  the  scandalous  campaigns  of  Com- 
modore Morris?  A  two  years'  command  of  an 
effective  squadron,  with  discretionary  instructions, 
wasted  in  sailing  from  port  to  port  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean, and  a  single  half  day  before  the  port  of 
the  enemy  against  which  he  was  sent.  All  this  can 
be  seen  in  the  proceedings  of  the  court  on  which 
he  was  dismissed;  and  it  is  due  to  the  honorable 
truths  with  which  the  book  abounds,  to  publish 
those  which  are  not  so.  A  fair  and  honest  narrative 
of  the  bad,  is  a  voucher  for  the  truth  of  the  good. 
In  this  way  the  old  Congress  set  an  example  to  the 
world,  for  which  the  world  amply  repaid  them,  by 
giving  unlimited  credit  to  whatever  was  stamped 
with  the  name  of  Charles  Thompson.  It  is  known 
that  this  was  never  put  to  an  untruth  but  once, 
and  that  where  Congress  was  misled  by  the  credulity 
of  their  General  (Sullivan).  The  first  misfortune 
of  the  Revolutionary  war,  induced  a  motion  to 
suppress  or  garble  the  account  of  it.  It  was  re- 
jected with  indignation.  The  whole  truth  was 
given  in  all  its  details,  and  there  never  was  another 
attempt  in  that  body  to  disguise  it.  These  obser- 
vations are  meant  for  the  good  of  the  work,  and  for 


Correspondence  265 

the  honor  of  those  whom  it  means  to  honor.     Accept 
the  assurance  of  my  esteem  and  respect. 


TO   THE    PRESIDENT    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 
(JAMES    MADISON). 

Monticello,  June  21,  1813. 
Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  the  6th  has  been 
received,  and  I  will  beg  leave  to  add  a  few  supple- 
mentary observations  on  the  subject  of  my  former 
letter.  I  am  not  a  judge  of  the  best  forms  which 
may  be  given  to  the  gunboat ;  and  indeed  I  suppose 
they  should  be  of  various  forms,  suited  to  the  vari- 
ous circumstances  to  which  they  would  be  applied. 
Among  these,  no  doubs,  Commodore  Barney's 
would  find  their  place.  While  the  largest  and 
more  expensive  are  fitted  for  moving  from  one  sea- 
port to  another,  coast-wise,  to  aid  in  a  particular 
emergency,  those  of  smaller  draught  and  expense 
suit  shallower  waters;  and  of  these  shallow  and 
cheap  forms  must  be  those  for  Lynhaven  river. 
Commodore  Preble,  in  his  lifetime,  undertook  to 
build  such  in  the  best  manner  for  two  or  three 
thousand  dollars.  Colonel  Monroe,  to  whose  knowl- 
edge of  the  face  of  the  country  I  had  referred,  ap- 
proves, in  a  letter  to  me,  of  such  a  plan  of  defence  as 
was  suggested,  adding  to  it  a  fort  on  the  middle 
grounds;  but  thinks  the  work  too  great  to  be  exe- 
cuted during  a  war.  Such  a  fort,  certainly,  could 
not  be  built  during  a  war,  in  the  face  of  an  enemy 


266  Jefferson's  Works 

Its  practicability  at  any  time  has  been  doubted, 
and  although  a  good  auxiliary,  is  not  a  necessary 
member  of  this  scheme  of  defence.  But  the  canal 
of  retreat  is  really  a  small  work,  of  a  few  months' 
execution;  the  laborers  would  be  protected  by  the 
military  guard  on  the  spot,  and  many  of  these 
would  assist  in  the  execution,  for  fatigue,  rations, 
and  pay.  The  exact  magnitude  of  the  work  I 
would  not  affirm,  nor  do  I  think  we  should  trust  for 
it  to  Tatham's  survey;  still  less  would  I  call  in 
Latrobe,  who  would  immediately  contemplate  a 
canal  of  Languedoc.  I  would  sooner  trust  such  a 
man  as  Thomas  Monroe  to  take  the  level,  measure 
the  distances,  and  estimate  the  expense.  And  if 
the  plan  were  all  matured  the  ensuing  winter,  and 
laborers  engaged  at  the  proper  season,  it  might  be 
executed  in  time  to  mitigate  the  blockade  of  the 
next  summer.  On  recurring  to  an  actual  survey 
of  that  part  of  the  country,  made  in  the  beginning 
of  the  Revolutionary  war,  under  the  orders  of  the 
Governor  and  Council,  by  Mr.  Andrews  I  think, 
a  copy  of  which  I  took  with  great  care,  instead  of 
the  half  a  dozen  miles  I  had  conjectured  in  my 
former  letter,  the  canal  would  seem  to  be  of  not 
half  that  length.  I  send  you  a  copy  of  that  part 
of  the  map,  which  may  be  useful  to  you  on  other 
occasions,  and  is  more  to  be  depended  on  for  mi- 
nutia,  probably,  than  any  other  existing.  I  have 
marked  on  that  the  conjectured  route  of  the  canal, 
to   wit,    from   the    bridge    on    Lynhaven   river   to 


Correspondence  267 

King's  landing,  on  the  eastern  branch.  The  exact 
draught  of  water  into  Lynhaven  river  you  have 
in  the  Navy  Office.     I  think  it  is  over  four  feet. 

When  we  consider  the  population  and  produc- 
tions of  the  Chesapeake  country,  extending  from 
the  Genissee  to  the  Saura  towns  and  Albemarle 
Sound,  its  safety  and  commerce  seem  entitled  even 
to  greater  efforts,  if  greater  could  secure  them. 
That  a  defence  at  the  entrance  of  the  bay  can  be 
made  mainly  effective,  that  it  will  cost  less  in 
money,  harass  the  militia  less,  place  the  inhabitants 
on  its  interior  waters  freer  from  alarm  and  depre- 
dation, and  render  provisions  and  water  more 
difficult  to  the  enemy,  is  so  possible  as  to  render 
thorough  inquiry  certainly  expedient.  Some  of 
the  larger  gunboats,  or  vessels  better  uniting  swift- 
ness with  force,  would  also  be  necessary  to  scour 
the  interior,  and  cut  off  any  pickaroons  which 
might  venture  up  the  bay  or  rivers.  The  loss  on 
James  river  alone,  this  year,  is  estimated  at  two 
hundred  thousand  barrels  of  flour,  now  on  hand, 
for  which  the  half  price  is  not  to  be  expected.  This 
then  is  a  million  of  dollars  levied  on  a  single  water 
of  the  Chesapeake,  and  to  be  levied  every  year 
during  the  war.  If  a  concentration  of  its  defence 
at  the  entrance  of  the  Chesapeake  should  be  found 
inadequate,  then  we  must  of  necessity  submit  to 
the  expenses  of  detailed  defence,  to  the  harass- 
ment of  the  militia,  the  burnings  of  towns  and 
houses,  depredations  of  farms,  and  the  hard  trial 


268  Jefferson's/Works 

of  the  spirit  of  the  Middle  States,  the  most  zealous 
supporters  of  the  war,  and,  therefore,  the  peculiar 
objects  of  the  vindictive  efforts  of  the  enemy. 
Those  north  of  the  Hudson  need  nothing,  because 
treated  by  the  enemy  as  neutrals.  All  their  war 
is  concentrated  on  the  Delaware  and  Chesapeake; 
and  these,  therefore,  stand  in  principal  need  of  the 
shield  of  the  Union.  The  Delaware  can  be  defended 
more  easily.  But  I  should  not  think  one  hundred 
gunboats  (costing  less  than  one  frigate)  an  over- 
proportioned  allotment  to  the  Chesapeake  country 
against  the  over-proportioned  hostilities  pointed 
at  it. 

I  am  too  sensible  of  the  partial  and  defective  state 
of  my  information,  to  be  over-confident,  or  perti- 
nacious, in  the  opinion  I  have  formed.  A  thorough 
examination  of  the  ground  will  settle  it.  We  may 
suggest,  perhaps  it  is  a  duty  to  do  it.  But  you 
alone  are  qualified  for  decision,  by  the  whole  view 
which  you  can  command;  and  so  confident  am  I 
in  the  intentions,  as  well  as  wisdom,  of  the  govern- 
ment, that  I  shall  always  be  satisfied  that  what  is 
not  done,  either  cannot,  or  ought  not  to  be  done. 
While  I  trust  that  no  difficulties  will  dishearten 
us,  I  am  anxious  to  lessen  the  trial  as  much  as 
possible.  Heaven  preserve  you  under  yours,  and 
help  you  through  all  its  perplexities  and  perversitieg. 


Correspondence]  269 

TO   JOHN    W.    EPPES. 

Monticello,  June  24,  1813. 

Dear  Sir, — This  letter  will  be  on  politics  only. 
For  although  I  do  not  often  permit  myself  to  think 
on  that  subject,  it  sometimes  obtrudes  itself,  and 
suggests  ideas  which  I  am  tempted  to  pursue. 
Some  of  these  relating  to  the  business  of  finance, 
I  will  hazard  to  you,  as  being  at  the  head  of  that 
committee,  but  intended  for  yourself  individually, 
or  such  as  you  trust,  but  certainly  not  for  a  mixed 
committee. 

It  is  a  wise  rule,  and  should  be  fundamental  in 
a  government  disposed  to  cherish  its  credit,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  restrain  the  use  of  it  within  the 
limits  of  its  faculties,  "  never  to  borrow  a  dollar 
without  laying  a  tax  in  the  same  instant  for  pay- 
ing the  interest  annually,  and  the  principal  within 
a  given  term;  and  to  consider  that  tax  as  pledged 
to  the  creditors  on  the  public  faith."  On  such  a 
pledge  as  this,  sacredly  observed,  a  government 
may  always  command,  on  a  reasonable  interest,  all 
the  lendable  money  of  their  citizens,  while  the 
necessity  of  an  equivalent  tax  is  a  salutary  warn- 
ing to  them  and  their  constituents  against  oppres- 
sions, bankruptcy,  and  its  inevitable  consequence, 
revolution.  But  the  term  of  redemption  must  be 
moderate,  and  at  any  rate  within  the  limits  of  their 
rightful  powers.  But  what  limits,  it  will  be  asked, 
does  this  prescribe  to  their  powers?     What  is  to 


2 70  Jefferson's  Works 

hinder  them  from  creating  a  perpetual  debt?  The 
laws  of  nature,  I  answer.  The  earth  belongs  to  the 
living,  not  to  the  dead.  The  will  and  the  power 
of  man  expire  with  his  life,  by  nature's  law.  Some 
societies  give  it  an  artificial  continuance,  for  the 
encouragement  of  industry;  some  refuse  it,  as  our 
aboriginal  neighbors,  whom  we  call  barbarians. 
The  generations  of  men  may  be  considered  as 
bodies  or  corporations.  Each  generation  has  the 
usufruct  of  the  earth  during  the  period  of  its  con- 
tinuance. When  it  ceases  to  exist,  the  usufruct 
passes  on  to  the  succeeding  generation,  free  and 
unincumbered,  and  so  on,  successively,  from  one 
generation  to  another  forever.  We  may  consider 
each  generation  as  a  distinct  nation,  with  a  right, 
by  the  will  of  its  majority,  to  bind  themselves, 
but  none  to  bind  the  succeeding  generation,  more 
than  the  inhabitants  of  another  country.  Or  the 
case  may  be  likened  to  the  ordinary  one  of  a  tenant 
for  life,  who  may  hypothecate  the  land  for  his  debts, 
during  the  continuance  of  his  usufruct;  but  at  his 
death,  the  reversioner  (who  is  also  for  life  only) 
receives  it  exonerated  from  all  burthen.  The  period 
of  a  generation,  or  the  term  of  its  life,  is  determined 
by  the  laws  of  mortality,  which,  varying  a  little 
only  in  different  climates,  offer  a  general  average, 
to  be  found  by  observation.  I  turn,  for  instance, 
to  Buff  on 's  tables,  of  twenty-three  thousand  nine 
hundred  and  ninety-four  deaths,  and  the  ages  at 
which  they  happened,  and  I  find  that  of  the  num- 


Correspondence  2  7 1 

bers  of  all  ages  living  at  one  moment,  half  will  be 
dead  in  twenty-four  years  and  eight  months.  But 
(leaving  out  minors,  who  have  not  the  power  of 
self-government)  of  the  adults  (of  twenty-one  years 
of  age)  living  at  one  moment,  a  majority  of  whom 
act  for  the  society,  one-half  will  be  dead  in  eighteen 
years  and  eight  months.  At  nineteen  years  then 
from  the  date  of  a  contract,  the  majority  of  the 
contractors  are  dead,  and  their  contract  with  them. 
Let  this  general  theory  be  applied  to  a  particular 
case.  Suppose  the  annual  births  of  the  State  of 
New  York  to  be  twenty-three  thousand  nine  hun- 
dred and  ninety-four,  the  whole  number  of  its 
inhabitants,  according  to  Buffon,  will  be  six  hundred 
and  seventeen  thousand  seven  hundred  and  three, 
of  all  ages.  Of  these  there  would  constantly  be 
two  hundred  and  sixty-nine  thousand  two  hundred 
and  eighty-six  minors,  and  three  hundred  and  forty- 
eight  thousand  four  hundred  and  seventeen  adults, 
of  which  last,  one  hundred  and  seventy-four  thou- 
sand two  hundred  and  nine  will  be  a  majority. 
Suppose  that  majority,  on  the  first  day  of  the  year 
1794,  had  borrowed  a  sum  of  money  equal  to  the 
fee-simple  value  of  the  State,  and  to  have  consumed 
it  in  eating,  drinking  and  making  merry  in  their 
day;  or,  if  you  please,  in  quarrelling  and  fighting 
with  their  unoffending  neighbors..  Within  eighteen 
years  and  eight  months,  one-half  of  the  adult  citi- 
zens were  dead.  Till  then,  being  the  majority, 
they   might   rightfully   levy   the   interest    of   their 


272  Jeff erson  '$  Works 

debt  annually  on  themselves  and  their  fellow  revel- 
lers, or  fellow  champions.  But  at  that  period, 
say  at  this  moment,  a  new  majority  have  come 
into  place,  in  their  own  right,  and  not  under  the 
rights,  the  conditions,  or  laws  of  their  predecessors. 
Are  they  bound  to  acknowledge  the  debt,  to  con- 
sider the  preceding  generation  as  having  had  a 
right  to  eat  up  the  whole  soil  of  their  country,  in 
the  course  of  a  life,  to  alienate  it  from  them,  (for 
it  would  be  an  alienation  to  the  creditors,)  and 
would  they  think  themselves  either  legally  or  morally 
bound  to  give  up  their  country  and  emigrate  to 
another  for  subsistence?  Every  one  will  say  no; 
that  the  soil  is  the  gift  of  God  to  the  living,  as  much 
as  it  had  been  to  the  deceased  generation;  and 
that  the  laws  of  nature  impose  no  obligation  on 
them  to  pay  this  debt.  And  although,  like  some 
other  natural  rights,  this  has  not  yet  entered  into 
any  declaration  of  rights,  it  is  no  less  a  law,  and 
ought  to  be  acted  on  by  honest  governments.  It 
is,  at  the  same  time,  a  salutary  curb  on  the  spirit 
of  war  and  indebtment,  which,  since  the  modern 
theory  of  the  perpetuation  of  debt,  has  drenched 
the  earth  with  blood,  and  crushed  its  inhabitants 
under  burdens  ever  accumulating.  Had  this  prin- 
ciple been  declared  in  the  British  bill  of  rights,  Eng- 
land would  have  been  placed  under  the  happy 
disability  of  waging  eternal  war,  and  of  contracting 
her  thousand  millions  of  public  debt.  In  seeking, 
then,  for  an  ultimate  term  for  the  redemption  of 


Correspondence  273 

our  debts,  let  us  rally  to  this  principle,  and  provide 
for  their  payment  within  the  term  of  nineteen  years 
at  the  farthest.  Our  government  has  not,  as  yet, 
begun  to  act  on  the  rule  of  loans  and  taxation  going 
hand  in  hand.  Had  any  loan  taken  place  in  my 
time,  I  should  have  strongly  urged  a  redeeming 
tax.  For  the  loan  which  has  been  made  since  the 
last  session  of  Congress,  we  should  now  set  the 
example  of  appropriating  some  particular  tax,  suffi- 
cient to  pay  the  interest  annually,  and  the  principal 
within  a  fixed  term,  less  than  nineteen  years.  And 
I  hope  yourself  and  your  committee  will  render  the 
immortal  service  of  introducing  this  practice.  Not 
that  it  is  expected  that  Congress  should  formally 
declare  such  a  principle.  They  wisely  enough  avoid 
deciding  on  abstract  questions.  But  they  may  be 
induced  to  keep  themselves  within  its  limits. 

I  am  sorry  to  see  our  loans  begin  at  so  exorbitant 
an  interest.  And  yet,  even  at  that  you  will  soon 
be  at  the  bottom  of  the  loan-bag.  We  are  an  agri- 
cultural nation.  Such  an  one  employs  its  sparings 
in  the  purchase  or  improvement  of  land  or  stocks. 
The  lendable  money  among  them  is  chiefly  that  of 
orphans  and  wards  in  the  hands  of  executors  and 
guardians,  and  that  which  the  farmer  lays  by  till  he 
has  enough  for  the  purchase  in  view.  In  such  a 
nation  there  is  one  and  one  only  resource  for  loans, 
sufficient  to  carry  them  through  the  expense  of  a 
war;  and  that  will  always  be  sufficient,  and  in  the 
power  of  an  honest  government,   punctual  in  the 

VOL.    XIII 18 


2  74  Jefferson's'  Works 

preservation  of  its  faith.  The  fund  I  mean,  is  the 
mass  of  circulating  coin.  Every  one  knows,  that 
although  not  literally,  it  is  nearly  true,  that  every 
paper  dollar  emitted  banishes  a  silver  one  from  the 
circulation.  A  nation,  therefore,  making  its  pur- 
chases and  payments  with  bills  fitted  for  circulation, 
thrusts  an  equal  sum  of  coin  out  of  circulation.  This 
is  equivalent  to  borrowing  that  sum,  and  yet  the 
vendor  receiving  payment  in  a  medium  as  effectual 
as  coin  for  his  purchases  or  payments,  has  no  claim 
to  interest.  And  so  the  nation  may  continue  to 
issue  its  bills  as  far  as  its  wants  require,  and  the 
limits  of  the  circulation  will  admit.  Those  limits 
are  understood  to  extend  with  us  at  present,  to  two 
hundred  millions  of  dollars,  a  greater  sum  than  would 
be  necessary  for  any  war.  But  this,  the  only  re- 
source which  the  government  could  command  with 
certainty,  the  States  have  unfortunately  fooled  away, 
nay  corruptly  alienated  to  swindlers  and  shavers, 
under  the  cover  of  private  banks.  Say,  too,  as  an 
additional  evil,  that  the  disposal  funds  of  individuals, 
to  this  great  amount,  have  thus  been  withdrawn 
from  improvement  and  useful  enterprise,  and  em- 
ployed in  the  useless,  usurious  and  demoralizing 
practices  of  bank  directors  and  their  accomplices. 
In  the  war  of  1755,  our  State  availed  itself  of  this 
fund  by  issuing  a  paper  money,  bottomed  on  a  spe- 
cific tax  for  its  redemption,  and,  to  insure  its  credit, 
bearing  an  interest  of  five  per  cent.  Within  a  very 
short  time,  not  a  bill  of  this  emission  was  to  be  found 


Correspondence  275 

in  circulation.  It  was  locked  up  in  the  chests  of 
executors,  guardians,  widows,  farmers,  etc.  We 
then  issued  bills  bottomed  on  a  redeeming  tax,  but 
bearing  no  interest.  These  were  readily  received, 
and  never  depreciated  a  single  farthing.  In  the 
Revolutionary  war,  the  old  Congress  and  the  States 
issued  bills  without  interest,  and  without  tax.  They 
occupied  the  channels  of  circulation  very  freely,  till 
those  channels  were  overflowed  by  an  excess  beyond 
,all  the  calls  of  circulation.  But  although  we  have 
so  improvidently  suffered  the  field  of  circulating 
medium  to  be  filched  from  us  by  private  individuals, 
yet  I  think  we  may  recover  it  in  part,  and  even  in 
the  whole,  if  the  States  will  co-operate  with  us.  If 
treasury  bills  are  emitted  on  a  tax  appropriated  for 
their  redemption  in  fifteen  years,  and  (to  insure 
preference  in  the  first  moments  of  competition)  bear- 
ing an  interest  of  six  per  cent,  there  is  no  one  who 
would  not  take  them  in  preference  to  the  bank  paper 
now  afloat,  on  a  principle  of  patriotism  as  well  as 
interest;  and  they  would  be  withdrawn  from  circu- 
lation into  private  hoards  to  a  considerable  amount. 
Their  credit  once  established,  others  might  be 
emitted,  bottomed  also  on  a  tax,  but  not  bearing 
interest ;  and  if  ever  their  credit  faltered,  open  pub- 
lic loans,  on  which  these  bills  alone  should  be  received 
as  specie.  These,  operating  as  a  sinking  fund,  would 
reduce  the  quantity  in  circulation,  so  as  to  maintain 
that  in  an  equilibrium  with  specie.  It  is  not  easy 
to  estimate  the  obstacles  which,  in  the  beginning, 


276  Jefferson  rs  Works 

we  should  encounter  in  ousting  the  banks  from  their 
possession  of  the  circulation ;  but  a  steady  and  judi- 
cious alternation  of  emissions  and  loans,  would  reduce 
them  in  time.     But  while  this  is  going  on,  another 
measure  should  be  pressed,  to  recover  ultimately  our 
right  to  the  circulation.    The  States  should  be  applied 
to,  to  transfer  the  right  of  issuing  circulating  paper 
to  Congress  exclusively,  in  perpetuum,  if  possible, 
but  during  the  war  at  least,  with  a  saving  of  charter 
rights.     I  believe  that  every  State  west  and  south 
of  Connecticut  river,  except  Delaware,  would  imme- 
diately do  it;    and  the  others  would  follow  in  time. 
Congress  would,   of  course,  begin  by  obliging  un- 
chartered banks  to  wind  up  their  affairs  within  a 
short  time,  and  the  others  as  their  charters  expired, 
forbidding  the  subsequent  circulation  of  their  paper. 
This  they  would  supply  with  their  own,  bottomed, 
every  emission,  on  an  adequate  tax,  and  bearing  or 
not  bearing  interest,  as  the  state  of  the  public  pulse 
should  indicate.     Even  in  the  non-complying  States, 
these  bills  would  make  their  way,  and  supplant  the 
unfunded  paper  of  their  banks,  by  their  solidity,  by 
the  universality  of  their  currency,  and  by  their  re- 
ceivability  for  customs  and  taxes.     It  would  be  in 
their  power,  too,  to  curtail  those  banks  to  the  amount 
of  their  actual  specie,  by  gathering  up  their  pape:, 
and  running  it  constantly  on  them.     The  national 
paper  might  thus  take  place  even  in  the  non-comply- 
ing States.     In  this  way,  I  am  not  without  a  hope, 
that  this  great,  this  sole  resource  for  loans  in  an  agri- 


Correspondence  277 

cultural  country,  might  yet  be  recovered  for  the  use 
of  the  nation  during  war;  and,  if  obtained  in  per- 
petuum,  it  would  always  be  sufficient  to  carry  us 
through  any  war;  provided,  that  in  the  interval 
between  war  and  war,  all  the  outstanding  paper 
should  be  called  in,  coin  be  permitted  to  flow  in  again, 
and  to  hold  the  field  of  circulation  until  another  war 
should  require  its  yielding  place  again  to  the  national 
medium. 

But* it  will  be  asked,  are  we  to  have  no  banks? 
Are  merchants  and  others  to  be  deprived  of  the 
resource  of  short  accommodations,  found  so  con- 
venient? I  answer,  let  us  have  banks;  but  let  them 
be  such  as  are  alone  to  be  found  in  any  country  on 
earth,  except  Great  Britain.  There  is  not  a  bank 
of  discount  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  (at  least 
there  was  not  one  when  I  was  there,)  which  offers 
anything  but  cash  in  exchange  for  discounted  bills. 
No  one  has  a  natural  right  to  the  trade  of  a  money 
lender,  but  he  who  has  the  money  to  lend.  Let  those 
then  among  us,  who  have  a  moneyed  capital,  and  who 
prefer  employing  it  in  loans  rather  than  otherwise, 
set  up  banks,  and  give  cash  or  national  bills  for  the 
notes  they  discount.  Perhaps,  to  encourage  them, 
a  larger  interest  than  is  legal  in  the  other  cases  might 
be  allowed  them,  on  the  condition  of  their  lending 
for  short  periods  only.  It  is  from  Great  Britain  we 
copy  the  idea  of  giving  paper  in  exchange  for  dis- 
counted bills;   and  while  we  have  derived  from  that 

country  some  good  principles  of  government  and 


278  Jefferson's  Works 

legislation,  we  unfortunately  run  into  the  most  ser- 
vile imitation  of  all  her  practices,  ruinous  as  they 
prove  to  her,  and  with  the  gulf  yawning  before  us 
into  which  these  very  practices  are  precipitating  her. 
The  unlimited  emission  of  bank  paper  has  banished 
all  her  specie,  and  is  now,  by  a  depreciation  acknowl- 
edged by  her  own  statesmen,  carrying  her  rapidly 
to  bankruptcy,  as  it  did  France,  as  it  did  us,  and  will 
do  us  again,  and  every  country  permitting  paper  to 
be  circulated,  other  than  that  by  public  authority, 
rigorously  limited  to  the  just  measure  for  circulation. 
Private  fortunes,  in  the  present  state  of  our  circula- 
tion, are  at  the  mercy  of  those  self -created  money 
lenders,  and  are  prostrated  by  the  floods  of  nominal 
money  with  which  their  avarice  deluges  us.  He  who 
lent  his  money  to  the  public  or  to  an  individual, 
before  the  institution  of  the  United  States  Bank, 
twenty  years  ago,  when  wheat  was  well  sold  at  a 
dollar  the  bushel,  and  receives  now  his  nominal  sum 
when  it  sells  at  two  dollars,  is  cheated  of  half  his 
fortune;  and  by  whom?  By  the  banks,  which, 
since  that,  have  thrown  into  circulation  ten  dollars 
of  their  nominal  money  where  was  one  at  that  time. 
Reflect,  if  you  please,  on  these  ideas,  and  use  them 
or  not  as  they  appear  to  merit.  They  comfort  me 
in  the  belief,  that  they  point  out  a  resource  ample 
enough,  without  overwhelming  war  taxes,  for  the 
expense  of  the  war,  and  possibly  still  recoverable; 
and  that  they  hold  up  to  all  future  time  a  resource 
within  ourselves,  ever  at  the  command  of  govern- 


Correspondence  279 

ment,  and  competent  to  any  wars  into  which  we  may 
be  forced.  Nor  is  it  a  slight  object  to  equalize  taxes 
through  peace  and  war. 

vL.  «i»  •£»  .A. .  •      «!•  *£•  «!•  <k  iJ* 

*J>  5|>  »J>  »|>  »p  »J>  »J»  *!•  1» 

Ever  affectionately  yours. 


TO    JOHN    ADAMS. 

Monticello,  June  27,  1813. 

iSav  es  7roA/uS6v8pov  av^p  'vXrjTOfios  eX^wv 
IIa7rTatV€t,  Trapeovros  aSrjv,  TroOev  ap^erat  cpy9 
Tt  Trparov  KaraXe^u);    €7ret  7rapa  fAvpua  enrrv. 

And  I  too,  my  dear  Sir,  like  the  wood-cutter  of  Ida, 
should  doubt  where  to  begin,  were  I  to  enter  the 
forest  of  opinions,  discussions,  and  contentions 
which  have  occurred  in  our  day.     I  should  say  with 

IneOCritUS,    Tt  Trparov   KaraXeia);    £7ret    7rapa  /xvpia  enrrjv.        13 Ut 

I  shall  not  do  it.  The  summum  bonum  with  me  is 
now  truly  epicurian,  ease  of  body  and  tranquillity  of 
mind;  and  to  these  I  wish  to  consign  my  remaining 
days.  Men  have  differed  in  opinion,  and  been 
divided  into  parties  by  these  opinions,  from  the  first 
origin  of  societies,  and  in  all  governments  where 
they  have  been  permitted  freely  to  think  and  to 
speak.  The  same  political  parties  which  now  agitate 
the  United  States,  have  existed  through  all  time. 
Whether  the  power  of  the  people  or  that  of  the  apio-™ 
should  prevail,  were  questions  which  kept  the  States 
of  Greece  and  Rome  in  eternal  convulsions,  as  they 
now   schismatize   every   people   whose   minds   and 


28o  Jefferson's  Works 

mouths  are  not  shut  up  by  the  gag  of  a  despot.  And 
in  fact,  the  terms  of  whig  and  tory  belong  to  natural 
as  well  as  to  civil  history.  They  denote  the  temper 
and  constitution  of  mind  of  different  individuals. 
To  come  to  our  own  country,  and  to  the  times  when 
you  and  I  became  first  acquainted,  we  well  remem- 
ber the  violent  parties  which  agitated  the  old  Con- 
gress, and  their  bitter  contests.  There  you  and  I 
were  together,  and  the  Jays,  and  the  Dickinsons,  and 
other  anti-independents,  were  arrayed  against  us. 
They  cherished  the  monarchy  of  England,  and  we 
the  rights  of  our  countrymen.  When  our  present 
government  was  in  the  mew,  passing  from  Confed- 
eration to  Union,  how  bitter  was  the  schism  between 
the  Feds  and  Antis!  Here  you  and  I  were  together 
again.  For  although,  for  a  moment,  separated  by 
the  Atlantic  from  the  scene  of  action,  I  favored  the 
opinion  that  nine  States  should  confirm  the  constitu- 
tion, in  order  to  secure  it,  and  the  others  hold  off  until 
certain  amendments,  deemed  favorable  to  freedom, 
should  be  made.  I  rallied  in  the  first  instant  to  the 
wiser  proposition  of  Massachusetts,  that  all  should 
confirm,  and  then  all  instruct  their  delegates  to  urge 
those  amendments.  The  amendments  were  made, 
and  all  were  reconciled  to  the  government.  But  as 
soon  as  it  was  put  into  motion,  the  line  of  division 
was  again  drawn.  We  broke  into  two  parties,  each 
wishing  to  rive  the  government  a  different  direction ; 
the  one  to  strengthen  the  most  popular  branch,  the 
other  the  more  permanent  branches,  and  to  extend 


Correspondence  28 1 

their  permanence.  Here  you  and  I  separated  for 
the  first  time,  and  as  we  had  been  longer  than  most 
others  on  the  public  theatre,  and  our  names  therefore 
were  more  familiar  to  our  countrymen,  the  party 
which  considered  you  as  thinking  with  them,  placed 
your  name  at  their  head;  the  other,  for  the  same 
reason,  selected  mine.  But  neither  decency  nor 
inclination  permitted  us  to  become  the  advocates 
of  ourselves,  or  to  take  part  personally  in  the  violent 
contests  which  followed.  We  suffered  ourselves, 
as  you  so  well  expressed  it,  to  be  passive  subjects  of 
public  discussion.  And  these  discussions,  whether 
relating  to  men,  measures  or  opinions,  were  con- 
ducted by  the  parties  with  an  animosity,  a  bitterness 
and  an  indecency  which  had  never  been  exceeded. 
All  the  resources  of  reason  and  of  wrath  were  ex^ 
hausted  by  each  party  in  support  of  its  own,  and  tc 
prostrate  the  adversary  opinions ;  one  was  upbraided, 
with  receiving  the  anti-federalists,  the  other  the  old 
tories  and  refugees,  into  their  bosom.  Of  this  acri- 
mony, the  public  papers  of  the  day  exhibit  ample 
testimony,  in  the  debates  of  Congress,  of  State  Legis- 
latures, of  stump-orators,  in  addresses,  answers,  and 
newspaper  essays;  and  to  these,  without  question, 
may  be  added  the  private  correspondences  of  indi- 
viduals; and  the  less  guarded  in  these,  because  not 
meant  for  the  public  eye,  not  restrained  by  the 
respect  due  to  that,  but  poured  forth  from  the  over- 
flowings of  the  heart  into  the  bosom  of  a  friend,  as  a 
vnomentary  easement  of  our  feelings.     In  this  way, 


282  Jefferson's  Works 

and  in  answers  to  addresses,  you  and  I  could  indulge 
ourselves.  We  have  probably  done  it,  sometimes 
with  warmth,  often  with  prejudice,  but  always,  as 
we  believed,  adhering  to  truth.  I  have  not  ex- 
amined my  letters  of  that  day.  I  have  no  stomach 
to  revive  the  memory  of  its  feelings.  But  one  of 
these  letters,  it  seems,  has  got  before  the  public,  by 
accident  and  infidelity,  by  the  death  of  one  friend 
to  whom  it  was  written,  and  of  his  friend  to  whom  it 
had  been  communicated,  and  by  the  malice  and 
treachery  of  a  third  person,  of  whom  I  had  never 
before  heard,  merely  to  make  mischief,  and  in  the 
same  satanic  spirit  in  which  the  same  enemy  had 
intercepted  and  published,  in  1776,  your  letter  ani- 
madverting on  Dickinson's  character.  How  it  hap- 
pened that  I  quoted  you  in  my  letter  to  Doctor 
Priestley,  and  for  whom,  and  not  for  yourself,  the 
strictures  were  meant,  has  been  explained  to  you  in 
my  letter  of  the  15th,  which  had  been  committed  to 
the  post  eight  days  before  I  received  yours  of  the 
10th,  nth,  and  14th.  That  gave  you  the  reference 
which  these  asked  to  the  particular  answer  alluded 
to  in  the  one  to  Priestley.  The  renewal  of  these  old 
discussions,  my  friend,  would  be  equally  useless  and 
irksome.  To  the  volumes  then  written  on  these 
subjects,  human  ingenuity  can  add  nothing  new, 
and  the  rather,  as  lapse  of  time  has  obliterated  many 
of  the  facts.  And  shall  you  and  I,  my  dear  Sir,  at 
our  age,  like  Priam  of  old,  gird  on  the  "  arma,  din 
desueta,  trementibus  avo  hnmerisV     Shall  we,  at  our 


Correspondence  283 

age,  become  the  Athletae  of  party,  and  exhibit  our- 
selves as  gladiators  in  the  arena  of  the  newspapers? 
Nothing  in  the  universe  could  induce  me  to  it.  My 
mind  has  been  long  fixed  to  bow  to  the  judgment  of 
the  world,  who  will  judge  by  my  acts,  and  will  never 
take  counsel  from  me  as  to  what  that  judgment  shall 
be.  If  your  objects  and  opinions  have  been  mis- 
understood, if  the  measures  and  principles  of  others 
have  been  wrongfully  imputed  to  you,  as  I  believe 
they  have  been,  that  you  should  leave  an  explana- 
tion of  them,  would  be  an  act  of  justice  to  yourself. 
I  will  add,  that  it  has  been  hoped  that  you  would 
leave  such  explanations  as  would  place  every  saddle 
on  its  right  horse,  and  replace  on  the  shoulders  of 
others  the  burdens  they  shifted  on  yours. 

But  all  this,  my  friend,  is  offered,  merely  for  your 
consideration  and  judgment,  without  presuming  to 
anticipate  what  you  alone  are  qualified  to  decide  for 
yourself.  I  mean  to  express  my  own  purpose  only, 
and  the  reflections  which  have  led  to  it.  To  me, 
then,  it  appears,  that  there  have  been  differences  of 
opinion  and  party  differences,  from  the  first  estab- 
lishment of  governments  to  the  present  day,  and  on 
the  same  question  which  now  divides  our  own  coun- 
try ;  that  these  will  continue  through  all  future  time ; 
that  every  one  takes  his  side  in  favor  of  the  many, 
or  of  the  few,  according  to  his  constitution,  and  the 
circumstances  in  which  he  is  placed;  that  opinions, 
which  are  equally  honest  on  both  sides,  should  not 
affect  personal  esteem  or  social  intercourse;  that  as 


284  Jefferson's  Works 

we  judge  between  the  Claudii  and  the  Gracchi,  the 
Wentworths  and  the  Hampdens  of  past  ages,  so  of 
those  among  us  whose  names  may  happen  to  be 
remembered  for  awhile,  the  next  generations  will 
judge,  favorably  or  unfavorably,  according  to  the 
complexion  of  individual  minds,  and  the  side  they 
shall  themselves  have  taken;  that  nothing  new  can 
be  added  by  you  or  me  to  what  has  been  said  by 
others,  and  will  be  said  in  every,  age  in  support  of 
the  conflicting  opinions  on  government;  and  that 
wisdom  and  duty  dictate  an  humble  resignation  to 
the  verdict  of  our  future  peers.  In  doing  this  myself, 
I  shall  certainly  not  suffer  moot  questions  to  affect 
the  sentiments  of  sincere  friendship  and  respect,  con- 
secrated to  you  by  so  long  a  course  of  time,  and  of 
which  I  now  repeat  sincere  assurances. 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  June  28,   1813. 

Dear  Sir, — I  know  not  what,  unless  it  were  the 
prophet  of  Tippecanoe,  had  turned  my  curiosity  to 
inquiries  after  the  metaphysical  science  of  the  In- 
dians, their  ecclesiastical  establishments,  and  theo- 
logical theories ;  but  your  letter,  written  with  all  the 
accuracy,  perspicuity,  and  elegance  of  your  youth 
and  middle  age,  as  it  has  given  me  great  satisfaction, 
deserves  my  best  thanks. 

It  has  given  me  satisfaction,  because,  while  it  has 
furnished  me  with  information  where  all  the  knowl- 


Correspondence  28S 

edge  is  to  be  obtained  that  books  afford,  it  has  con- 
vinced me  that  I  shall  never  know  much  more  of  the 
subject  than  I  do  now.  As  I  have  never  aimed  at 
making  my  collection  of  books  upon  this  subject,  I 
have  none  of  those  you  abridged  in  so  concise  a 
manner.  Lafitan,  Adair,  and  De  Bry,  were  known 
to  me  only  by  name. 

The  various  ingenuity  which  has  been  displayed 
in  inventions  of  hypothesis,  to  account  for  the  orig- 
inal population  of  America,  and  the  immensity  of 
learning  profusely  expended  to  support  them,  have 
appeared  to  me  for  a  longer  time  than  I  can  precisely 
recollect,  what  the  physicians  call  the  Liter ce  nihil 
Sanantes.  Whether  serpents'  teeth  were  sown  here 
and  sprang  up  men;  whether  men  and  women 
dropped  from  the  clouds  upon  this  Atlantic  Island; 
whether  the  Almighty  created  them  here,  or  whether 
they  emigrated  from  Europe,  are  questions  of  no 
moment  to  the  present  or  future  happiness  of  man. 
Neither  agriculture,  commerce,  manufactures,  fish- 
eries, science,  literature,  taste,  religion,  morals,  nor 
any  other  gOQd  will  be  promoted,  or  any  evil  averted, 
by  any  discoveries  that  can  be  made  in  answer  to 
these  questions. 

The  opinions  of  the  Indians  and  their  usages,  as 
they  are  represented  in  your  obliging  letter  of  the 
nth  of  June,  appear  to  me  to  resemble  the  Platoniz- 
ing  Philo,  or  the  Philonizing  Plato,  more  than  the 
genuine  system  of  Indianism. 

The  philosophy  both  of  Philo  and  Plato  are  at 
least  as  absurd,    It  is  indeed  less  intelligible, 


286  Jefferson's  Works 

Plato  borrowed  his  doctrines  from  Oriental  and 
Egyptian  philosophers,  for  he  had  travelled  both  in 
India  and  Egypt. 

The  Oriental  philosophy,  imitated  and  adopted, 
in  part,  if  not  the  whole,  by  Plato  and  Philo,  was 

i.  One  God  the  good 

2.  The  ideas,  the  thoughts,  the  reason,  the  intel- 
lect, the  logos,  the  ratio  of  God. 

3.  Matter,  the  universe,  the  production  of  the 
logos,  or  contemplations  of  God.  This  matter  was 
the  source  of  evil. 

Perhaps  the  three  powers  of  Plato,  Philo,  the 
Egyptians,  and  Indians,  cannot  be  distinctly  made 
out,  from  your  account  of  the  Indians,  but — 

1.  The  great  spirit,  the  good,  who  is  worshipped 
by  the  kings,  sachems,  and  all  the  great  men,  in  their 
solemn  festivals,  as  the  Author,  the  Parent  of  good. 

2.  The  Devil,  or  the  source  of  evil.  They  are  not 
metaphysicians  enough  as  yet  to  suppose  it,  or  at 
least  to  call  it  matter,  like  the  wiscains  of  Antiquity, 
and  like  Frederick  the  Great,  who  has  written  a  very 
silly  essay  on  the  origin  of  evil,  in  which  he  ascribes 
it  all  to  matter,  as  if  this  was  an  original  discovery 
of  his  own. 

The  watchmaker  has  in  his  head  an  idea  of  the 
system  of  a  watch  before  he  makes  it.  The  mecha- 
nician of  the  universe  had  a  complete  idea  of  the 
universe  before  he  made  it;  and  this  idea,  this  logos, 
was  almighty,  or  at  least  powerful  enough  to  produce 
the  world,  but  it  must  be  made  of  matter  which  was 


Correspondence  287 

eternal;  for  creation  out  of  nothing  was  impossible. 
And  matter  was  unmanageable.  It  would  not,  and 
could  not  be  fashioned  into  any  system,  without  a 
large  mixture  of  evil  in  it ;  for  matter  was  essentially 
evil. 

The  Indians  are  not  metaphysicians  enough  to 
have  discovered  this  idea,  this  logos,  this  intermediate 
power  between  good  and  evil,  God  and  matter.  But 
of  the  two  powers,  the  good  and  the  evil,  they  seem 
to  have  a  full  conviction ;  and  what  son  or  daughter 
of  Adam  and  Eve  has  not? 

This  logos  of  Plato  seems  to  resemble,  if  it  was  not 
the  prototype  of,  the  Ratio  and  its  Progress  of  Man- 
ilious,  the  astrologer;  of  the  Progress  of  the  Mind  of 
Condorcet,  and  the  Age  of  Reason  of  Tom  Payne. 

I  could  make  a  system  too.  The  seven  hundred 
thousand  soldiers  of  Zingis,  when  the  whole,  or  any 
part  of  them  went  to  battle,  they  sent  up  a  howl, 
which  resembled  nothing  that  human  imagination 
has  conceived,  unless  it  be  the  supposition  that  all 
the  devils  in  hell  were  let  loose  at  once  to  set  up  an 
infernal  scream,  which  terrified  their  enemies,  and 
never  failed  to  obtain  them  victory.  The  Indian 
yell  resembles  this;  and,  therefore,  America  was 
peopled  from  Asia. 

Another  system.  The  armies  of  Zingis,  some- 
times two  or  three  or  four  hundred  thousand  of 
them,  surrounded  a  province  in  a  circle,  and  marched 
towards  the  centre,  driving  all  the  wild  beasts  before 
them,  lions,  tigers,  wolves,  bears,  and  every  living 


288  Jefferson's  Works 

thing,  terrifying  them  with  their  howls  and  yells, 
their  drums,  trumpets,  etc.,  till  they  terrified  and 
tamed  enough  of  them  to  victual  the  whole  army. 
Therefore,  the  Scotch  Highlanders,  who  practice  the 
same  thing  in  miniature,  are  emigrants  from  Asia. 
Therefore,  the  American  Indians,  who,  for  anything 
I  know,  practice  the  same  custom,  are  emigrants 
from  Asia  or  Scotland. 

I  am  weary  of  contemplating  nations  from  the 
lowest  and  most  beastly  degradations  of  human  life, 
to  the  highest  refinement  of  civilization.  I  am 
weary  of  Philosophers,  Theologians,  Politicians,  and 
Historians.  They  are  an  immense  mass  of  absurdi- 
ties, vices,  and  lies.  Montesquieu  had  sense  enough 
to  say  in  jest,  that  all  our  knowledge  might  be  com- 
prehended in  twelve  pages  in  duodecimo,  and  I 
believe  him  in  earnest.  I  could  express  my  faith 
in  shorter  terms.  He  who  loves  the  workman  and 
his  work,  and  does  what  he  can  to  preserve  and  im 
prove  it,  shall  be  accepted  of  him. 

I  have  also  felt  an  interest  in  the  Indians,  and  a 
commiseration  for  them  from  my  childhood.  Aaron 
Pomham,  the  priest,  and  Moses  Pomham,  the  king 
of  the  Punkapang  and  Neponset  tribes,  were  fre- 
quent visitors  at  my  father's  house,  at  least  seventy 
years  ago.  I  have  a  distinct  remembrance  of  their 
forms  and  figures.  They  were  very  aged,  and  the 
tallest  and  stoutest  Indians  I  have  ever  seen.  The 
titles  of  king  and  priest,  and  the  names  of  Moses  and 
Aaron,  were  given  them  no  doubt  by  our  Massachu- 


Correspondence  289 

setts  divines  and  statesmen.  There  was  a  numer- 
ous family  in  this  town,  whose  wigwam  was  within 
a  mile  of  this  house.  This  family  were  frequently 
at  my  father's  house,  and  I,  in  my  boyish  rambles, 
used  to  call  at  their  wigwam,  where  I  never  failed 
to  be  treated  with  whortleberries,  blackberries, 
strawberries  or  apples,  plums,  peaches,  etc.,  for  they 
had  planted  a  variety  of  fruit  trees  about  them. 
But  the  girls  went  out  to  service,  and  the  boys  to 
sea,  till  not  a  soul  is  left.  We  scarcely  see  an  Indian 
in  a  year.  I  remember  the  time  when  Indian  mur- 
der, scalpings,  depredations  and  conflagrations,  were 
as  frequent  on  the  Eastern  and  Northern  frontier  of 
Massachusetts,  as  they  are  now  in  Indiana,  and 
spread  as  much  terror.  But  since  the  conquest  of 
Canada,  all  has  ceased ;  and  I  believe  with  you  that 
another  conquest  of  Canada  will  quiet  the  Indians 
forever,  and  be  as  great  a  blessing  to  them  as  to  us. 
The  instance  of  Aaron  Pomham  made  me  suspect 
that  there  was  an  order  of  priesthood  among  them. 
But,  according  to  your  account,  the  worship  of  the 
good  spirit  was  performed  by  the  kings,  sachems, 
and  warriors,  as  among  the  ancient  Germans,  whose 
highest  rank  of  nobility  were  priests.     The  worship 

Of     the      evil      Spirit,     AOclvcltlovs    /x-cv    7rpo)Ta    Oeovs    vofxio     <os 

8ta7TCtTat    TLfJUfX. 

We  have  war  now  in  earnest.  I  lament  the  con- 
tumacious spirit  that  appears  about  me.  But  I 
lament  the  cause  that  has  given  too  much  apology 
for  it ;   the  total  neglect  and  absolute  refusal  of  all 

VOL.    XIII-19 


29°  JeHefson's  Works 

maritime  protection  and  defence.  Money,  mariners, 
and  soldiers,  would  be  at  the  public  service,  if  only 
a  few  frigates  had  been  ordered  to  be  built.  Without 
this,  our  Union  will  be  a  brittle  china  vase,  a  house 
of  ice,  or  a  palace  of  glass. 

I  am,  Sir,  with  an  affectionate  respect,  yours. 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  June  28,  1813. 

Dear  Sir, — It  is  very  true  that  the  denunciations 
of  the  priesthood  are  fulminated  against  every  advo- 
cate for  a  complete  freedom  of  religion.  Commina- 
tions,  I  believe,  would  be  plenteously  pronounced 
by  even  the  most  liberal  of  them,  against  Atheism, 
Deism,  against  every  man  who  disbelieved  or  doubted 
the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  or  the  miracles  of  the  New 
Testament.  Priestley  himself  would  denounce  the 
man  who  should  deny  the  Apocalypse,  or  the  Proph- 
ecies of  Daniel.  Priestley  and  Lindsay  both  have 
denounced  as  idolaters  and  blasphemers  all  the  Trini- 
tarians, and  even  the  Arians. 

Poor  weak  man,  when  will  thy  perfection  arrive? 
Thy  perfectability  I  shall  not  deny;  for  a  greater 
character  than  Priestley  or  Godwin  has  said,  "  Be 
ye  perfect, "  etc.  For  my  part  I  can  not  deal  damna- 
tion round  the  land  on  all  I  judge  the  foes  of  God  and 
man.  But  I  did  not  intend  to  say  a  word  on  this 
subject  in  this  letter.  As  much  of  it  as  you  please 
hereafter,  but  let  me  return  to  politics. 


Correspondence  29  * 

With  some  difficulty  I  have  hunted  up,  or  down, 
the  "  address  of  the  young  men  of  the  city  of  Phila- 
delphia, the  district  of  Southwark,  and  the  Northern 
Liberties,"  and  the  answer. 

The  addresses  say,  "  Actuated  by  the  same  prin- 
ciples on  which  our  forefathers  achieved  their  inde- 
pendence, the  recent  attempts  of  a  foreign  power  to 
derogate  from  the  dignity  and  rights  of  our  coun- 
try, awaken  our  liveliest  sensibility,  and  our  strong- 
est indignation."  Huzza  my  brave  boys!  Could 
Thomas  Jefferson  or  John  Adams  hear  those  words 
with  insensibility,  and  without  emotion?  These 
boys  afterwards  add,  "We  regard  our  liberty  and 
independence  as  the  richest  portion  given  us  by  our 
ancestors. ' '  And  who  were  those  ancestors  ?  Among 
them  were  Thomas  Jefferson  and  John  Adams.  And 
I  very  coolly  believe  that  no  two  men  among  those 
ancestors  did  more  towards  it  than  those  two.  Could 
either  hear  this  like  statues?  If,  one  hundred  years 
hence,  your  letters  and  mine  should  see  the  light,  I 
hope  the  reader  will  hunt  up  this  address,  and  read 
it  all;  and  remember  that  we  were  then  engaged,  or 
on  the  point  of  engaging,  in  a  war  with  France.  I 
shall  not  repeat  the  answer  till  we  come  to  the  para- 
graph upon  which  you  criticised  to  Dr.  Priestley, 
though  every  word  of  it  is  true,  and  I  now  rejoice  to 
see  it  recorded,  and  though  I  had  wholly  forgotten  it. 

The  paragraph  is,  "  Science  and  morals  are  the 
great  pillars  on  which  this  country  has  been  raised 
to  its  present  population,  opulence  and  prosperity, 


292  Jefferson's  Works 

and  these  alone  can  advance,  support,  and  preserve 
it.  Without  wishing  to  damp  the  ardor  of  curiosity, 
or  influence  the  freedom  of  inquiry,  I  will  hazard  a 
prediction  that,  after  the  most  industrious  and  im- 
partial researches,  the  longest  liver  of  you  all  will  find 
no  principles,  institutions,  or  systems  of  education 
more  fit,  in  general,  to  be  transmitted  to  your  pos- 
terity than  those  you  have  received  from  your  ances- 
tors." 

Now,  compare  the  paragraph  in  the  answer  with 
the  paragraph  in  the  address,  as  both  are  quoted 
above,  and  see  if  we  can  find  the  extent  and  the 
limits  of  the  meaning  of  both. 

Who  composed  that  army  of  fine  young  fellows  that 
was  then  before  my  eyes?  There  were  among  them 
Roman  Catholics,  English  Episcopalians,  Scotch  and 
American  Presbyterians,  Methodists,  Moravians, 
Anabaptists,  German  Lutherans,  German  Calvinists, 
Universalis ts,  Arians,  Priestleyans,  Socinians,  Inde- 
pendents, Congregationalists,  Horse  Protestants  and 
House  Protestants,  Deists  and  Atheists;  and  " Pro- 
testans  qui  ne  croyent  rien."  Very  few  however  of 
several  of  these  species.  Nevertheless,  all  educated 
in  the  general  principles  of  Christianity;  and  the 
general  principles  of  English  and  American  liberty. 

Could  my  answer  be  understood  by  any  candid 
reader  or  hearer,  to  recommend  to  all  the  others 
the  general  principles,  institutions,  or  systems  of 
education  of  the  Roman  Catholics  ?  Or  those  of  the 
Quakers?    Or  those  of  the  Presbyterians?    Or  those 


Correspondence  293 

of  the  Menonists?  Or  those  of  the  Methodists?  Or 
those  of  the  Moravians  ?  Or  those  of  the  Universal- 
ists?     Or  those  of  the  Philosophers?     No. 

The  general  principles  on  which  the  fathers 
achieved  independence,  were  the  only  principles  in 
which  that  beautiful  assembly  of  young  gentlemen 
could  unite,  and  these  principles  only  could  be  in- 
tended by  them  in  their  address,  or  by  me  in  my 
answer. 

And  what  were  these  general  principles?  I 
answer,  the  general  principles  of  Christianity,  in 
which  all  those  sects  were  united;  and  the  general 
principles  of  English  and  American  liberty,  in 
which  all  these  young  men  united,  and  which  had 
united  all  parties  in  America,  in  majorities  sufficient 
to  assert  and  maintain  her  independence. 

Now  I  will  avow  that  I  then  believed,  and  now 
believe,  that  those  general  principles  of  Christianity 
are  as  eternal  and  immutable  as  the  existence  and 
attributes  of  God;  and  that  those  principles  of 
liberty  are  as  unalterable  as  human  nature,  and 
our  terrestrial  mundane  system.  I  could  therefore 
safely  say,  consistently  with  all  my  then  and  present 
information,  that  I  believed  they  would  never  make 
discoveries  in  contradiction  to  these  general  prin- 
ciples. In  favor  of  these  general  principles  in 
philosophy,  religion  and  government,  I  would  fill 
sheets  of  quotations  from  Frederick  of  Prussia,  from 
Hume,  Gibbon,  Bolingbroke,  Rousseau  and  Voltaire, 
as  well   as   Newton   and   Locke;    not   to   mention 


294  Jefferson^  Works 

thousands  of  divines  and  philosophers  of  inferior 
fame. 

I  might  have  flattered  myself  that  my  sentiments 
were  sufficiently  known  to  have  protected  me  against 
suspicions  of  narrow  thoughts,  contracted  senti- 
ments, bigoted,  enthusiastic,  or  superstitious  prin- 
ciples, civil,  political,  philosophical,  or  ecclesiastical. 
The  first  sentence  of  the  preface  to  my  defence  of 
the  constitution,  volume  ist,  printed  in  1787,  is  in 
these  words:  "The  arts  and  sciences,  in  general, 
during  the  three  or  four  last  centuries,  have  had  a 
regular  course  of  progressive  improvement.  The 
inventions  in  mechanic  arts,  the  discoveries  in  natu- 
ral philosophy,  navigation,  and  commerce,  and  the 
advancement  of  civilization  and  humanity,  have 
occasioned  changes  in  the  condition  of  the  world  and 
the  human  character,  which  would  have  astonished 
the  most  refined  nations  of  antiquity,"  etc.  I  will 
quote  no  farther ;  but  request  you  to  read  again  that 
whole  page,  and  then  say  whether  the  writer  of  it 
could  be  suspected  of  recommending  to  youth  "to 
look  backward  instead  of  forward"  for  instruction 
and  improvement. 

This  letter  is  already  too  long.  In  my  next  I  shall 
consider  the  Terrorism  of  the  day.  Meantime  I  am, 
as  ever,  your  friend. 


Correspondence  295 

TO    DR.    JOHN    L.    E.    W.    SHECUT. 

Monticello,  June  29,   1813. 

Sir,  — I  am  very  sensible  of  the  honor  done  me  by 
the  Antiquarian  Society  of  Charleston,  in  the  Rule 
for  the  organization  of  their  Society,  which  you  have 
been  so  good  as  to  communicate,  and  I  pray  you  to 
do  me  the  favor  of  presenting  to  them  my  thanks. 
Age,  and  my  inland  and  retired  situation,  make  it 
scarcely  probable  that  I  shall  be  able  to  render  them 
any  services.  But,  should  any  occasion  occur  wherein 
I  can  be  useful  to  them,  I  shall  receive  their  com- 
mands with  pleasure,  and  execute  them  with  fidelity. 
While  the  promotion  of  the  arts  and  sciences  is  in- 
teresting to  every  nation,  and  at  all  times,  it  becomes 
peculiarly  so  to  ours,  at  this  time,  when  the  total 
demoralization  of  the  governments  of  Europe,  has 
rendered  it  safest,  by  cherishing  internal  resources, 
to  lessen  the  occasions  of  intercourse  with  them. 
The  works  of  our  aboriginal  inhabitants  have  been 
so  perishable,  that  much  of  them  must  have  dis- 
appeared already.  The  antiquarian  researches, 
therefore,  of  the  Society,  cannot  be  too  soon,  or  too 
assiduously  directed,  to  the  collecting  and  preserving 
what  still  remain. 

Permit  me  to  place  here  my  particular  thankful- 
ness for  the  kind  sentiments  of  personal  regard  which 
you  have  been  pleased  to  express. 

I  have  been  in  the  constant  hope  of  seeing  the 
second  volume  of  your  excellent  botanical  work. 


296  Jefferson's  Works 

Its  alphabetical  form  and  popular  style,  its  attention 
to  the  properties  and  uses  of  plants,  as  well  as  to  their 
descriptions,  are  well  calculated  to  encourage  and 
instruct  our  citizens  in  botanical  inquiries. 

I  avail  myself  of  this  occasion,  of  enclosing  you  a 
little  of  the  fruit  of  a  Capsicum  I  have  just  received 
from  the  province  of  Texas,  where  it  is  indigenous 
and  perennial,  and  is  used  as  freely  as  salt  by 
the  inhabitants.  It  is  new  to  me.  It  differs  from 
your  Capsicum  Minimum,  in  being  perennial  and 
probably  hardier;  perhaps,  too,  in  its  size,  which 
would  claim  the  term  of  Minutissimum.  This  stimu- 
lant being  found  salutary  in  a  visceral  complaint 
known  on  the  seacoast,  the  introduction  of  a  hardier 
variety  may  be  of  value.  Accept  the  assurance  of 
my  great  respect  and  consideration. 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  June  30,   1813. 

Dear  Sir, —  ******* 
But  to  return,  for  the  present,  to  "The  sensations 
excited  in  free,  yet  firm  minds  by  the  Terrorism  of 
the  day."  You  say  none  can  conceive  them  who 
did  not  witness  them;  and  they  were  felt  by  one 
party  only. 

Upon  this  subject  I  despair  of  making  myself 
understood  by  posterity,  by  the  present  age,  and 
even  by  you.  To  collect  and  arrange  the  documents 
illustrative  of  it,  would  require  as  many  lives  as  those 


Correspondence  297 

of  a  cat.  You  never  felt  the  terrorism  of  Shay's 
Rebellion  in  Massachusetts.  I  believe  you  never 
felt  the  terrorism  of  Gallatin's  insurrection  in  Penn- 
sylvania. You  certainly  never  realized  the  terror- 
ism of  Tries 's  most  outrageous  riot  and  rescue,  as  I 
call  it.  Treason  rebellion — as  the  world,  and  great 
judges,  and  two  juries  pronounce  it. 

You  certainly  never  felt  the  terrorism  excited  by 
Genet  in  1793,  when  ten  thousand  people  in  the 
streets  of  Philadelphia,  day  after  day,  threatened 
to  drag  Washington  out  of  his  house,  and  effect  a 
revolution  in  the  government,  or  compel  it  to  declare 
war  in  favor  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  against 
England.  The  coolest  and  the  firmest  minds,  even 
among  the  Quakers  in  Philadelphia,  have  given  their 
opinions  to  me,  that  nothing  but  the  yellow  fever, 
which  removed  Dr.  Hutchinson  and  Jonathan  Dick- 
enson Sargent  from  this  world,  could  have  saved  the 
United  States  from  a  total  revolution  of  government. 
I  have  no  doubt  you  were  fast  asleep  in  philosophical 
tranquillity  when  ten  thousand  people,  and  perhaps 
many  more,  were  parading  the  streets  of  Philadel- 
phia, on  the  evening  of  my  Fast  Day.  When  even 
Governor  Mifflin  himself,  thought  it  his  duty  to  order 
a  patrol  of  horse  and  foot,  to  preserve  the  peace; 
when  Market  Street  was  as  full  as  men  could  stand 
by  one  another,  and  even  before  my  door ;  when 
some  of  my  domestics,  in  frenzy,  determined  to 
sacrifice  their  lives  in  my  defence;  when  all  were 
ready  to  make  a  desperate  sally  among  the  multi- 


298  Jefferson's  Works 

tude,  and  others  were  with  difficulty  and  danger 
dragged  back  by  the  others;  when  I  myself  judged 
it  prudent  and  necessary  to  order  chests  of  arms 
from  the  War  Office,  to  be  brought  through  by  lanes 
and  back  doors;  determined  to  defend  my  house  at 
the  expense  of  my  life,  and  the  lives  of  the  few,  very 
few,  domestics  and  friends  within  it.  What  think 
you  of  terrorism,  Mr.  Jefferson?  Shall  I  investigate 
the  causes,  the  motives,  the  incentives  to  these  ter- 
rorisms? Shall  I  remind  you  of  Philip  Freneau,  of 
Lloyd,  of  Ned  Church?  Of  Peter  Markoe,  of  Andrew 
Brown,  of  Duane?  Of  Callender,  of  Tom  Paine,  of 
Greenleaf,  of  Cheatham,  of  Tennison  at  New  York, 
of  Benjan.in  Austin  at  Boston? 

But  above  all,  shall  I  request  you  to  collect  circular 
letters  from  members  of  Congress  in  the  Middle  and 
Southern  States  to  their  constituents?  I  would  give 
all  I  am  worth  for  a  complete  collection  of  all  those 
circular  letters.  Please  to  recollect  Edward  Liv- 
ingston's motions  and  speeches,  and  those  of  his 
associates,  in  the  case  of  Jonathan  Robbins.  The 
real  terrors  of  both  parties  have  always  been,  and 
now  are,  the  fear  that  they  shall  lose  the  elections, 
and  consequently  the  loaves  and  fishes;  and  that 
their  antagonists  will  obtain  them.  Both  parties 
have  excited  artificial  terrors,  and  if  I  were  sum- 
moned as  a  witness  to  say,  upon  oath,  which  party 
had  excited,  Machiavellialy,  the  most  terror,  and 
which  had  really  felt  the  most,  I  could  not  give  a 
more  sincere  answer  than  in  the  vulgar  style,  put 


Correspondence  299 

them  in  a  bag  and  shake  them,  and  then  see  which 
comes  out  first. 

Where  is  the  terrorism  now,  my  friend?  There 
is  now  more  real  terrorism  in  New  England  than 
there  ever  was  in  Virginia.  The  terror  of  a  civil  war, 
a  La  Vendee,  a  division  of  the  States,  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 
How  shall  we  conjure  down  this  damnable  rivalry 
between  Virginia  and  Massachusetts?  Virginia  had 
recourse  to  Pennsylvania  and  New  York.  Massa- 
chusetts has  now  recourse  to  New  York.  They  have 
almost  got  New  Jersey  and  Maryland,  and  they  are 
aiming  at  Pennsylvania.  And  all  this  in  the  midst 
of  a  war  with  England,  when  all  Europe  is  in  flames. 

I  will  give  you  a  hint  or  two  more  on  the  subject 
of  terrorism.  When  John  Randolph  in  the  House, 
and  Stephens  Thompson  Mason  in  the  Senate,  were 
treating  me  with  the  utmost  contempt;  when  Ned 
Livingston  was  threatening  me  with  impeachment 
for  the  murder  of  Jonathan  Robbins,  the  native  of 
Danvers  in  Connecticut;  when  I  had  certain  informa- 
tion, that  the  daily  language  in  an  Insurance  Office 
in  Boston  was,  even  from  the  mouth  of  Charles  Jar- 
vis,  "We  must  go  to  Philadelphia  and  drag  that  John 
Adams  from  his  chair;"  I  thank  God  that  terror 
never  yet  seized  on  my  mind.  But  I  have  had  more 
excitements  to  it,  from  1761  to  this  day,  than  any 
other  man.  Name  the  other  if  you  can.  I  have 
been  disgraced  and  degraded,  and  I  have  a  right  to 
complain.  But  as  I  always  expected  it,  I  have 
always  submitted  to  it ;  perhaps  often  with  too  much 


3°°  Jefferson's  Works 

tameness.  The  amount  of  all  the  speeches  of  John 
Randolph  in  the  House,  for  two  or  three  years  is, 
that  himself  and  myself  are  the  only  two  honest  and 
consistent  men  in  the  United  States.  Himself  eter- 
nally in  opposition  to  government,  and  myself  as 
constantly  in  favor  of  it.  He  is  now  in  correspond- 
ence with  his  friend  Quincy.  What  will  come  of  it, 
let  Virginia  and  Massachusetts  judge.  In  my  next 
you  may  find  something  upon  correspondences; 
Whig  and  Tory ;  Federal  and  Democratic ;  Virginian 
and  Novanglain ;  English  and  French ;  Jacobinic  and 
Despotic,  etc. 

Meantime  I  am  as  ever,  your  friend. 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  July,   1813. 

Dear  Sir, — Correspondences!  The  letters  of  Ber- 
nard and  Hutchinson,  and  Oliver  and  Paxton,  etc., 
were  detected  and  exposed  before  the  Revolution. 
There  are,  I  doubt  not,  thousands  of  letters  now  in 
being,  (but  still  concealed  from  their  party,)  to  their 
friends,  which  will,  one  day,  see  the  light.  I  have 
wondered  for  more  than  thirty  years,  that  so  few 
have  appeared;  and  have  constantly  expected  that 
a  Tory  History  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  Revo- 
lution would  appear;  and  wished  it.  I  would  give 
more  for  it  than  for  Marshall,  Gordon,  Ramsay,  and 
all  the  rest.  Private  letters  of  all  parties  will  be 
found  analogous  to  the  newspapers,  pamphlets,  and 


Correspondence  301 

historians  of  the  times.  Gordon's  and  Marshall's 
histories  were  written  to  make  money;  and  fash- 
ioned and  finished  to  sell  high  in  the  London  market. 
I  should  expect  to  find  more  truth  in  a  history- 
written  by  Hutchinson,  Oliver,  or  Sewel;  and  I 
doubt  not,  such  histories  will  one  day  appear.  Mar- 
shall's is  a  Mausolaeum,  ioo  feet  square  at  the  base, 
and  200  feet  high.  It  will  be  as  durable  as  the  monu- 
ments of  the  Washington  benevolent  societies.  Your 
character  in  history  may  easily  be  foreseen.  Your 
administration  will  be  quoted  by ,  philosophers  as  a 
model  of  profound  wisdom;  by  politicians,  as  weak, 
superficial,  and  shortsighted.  Mine,  like  Pope's 
woman,  will  have  no  character  at  all.  The  impious 
idolatry  to  Washington  destroyed  all  character. 
His  legacy  of  ministers  was  not  the  worst  part  of 
the  tragedy;  though  by  his  own  express  confession 
to  me,  and  by  Pickering's  confession  to  the  world, 
in  his  letters  to  Sullivan,  two  of  them,  at  least,  were 
fastened  upon  him  by  necessity,  because  he  could 
get  no  other.  The  truth  is,  Hamilton's  influence 
over  him  was  so  well  known,  that  no  man  fit  for  the 
office  of  State  or  War  would  accept  either.  He  was 
driven  to  the  necessity  of  appointing  such  as  would 
accept;  and  this  necessity  was,  in  my  opinion,  the 
real  cause  of  his  retirement  from  office ;  for  you  may 
depend  upon  it,  that  retirement  was  not  voluntary. 
My  friend,  you  and  I  have  passed  our  lives  in 
serious  times.  I  know  not  whether  we  have  ever 
seen  any  moments  more  serious  than    the    present. 


3°2  Jefferson's  Works 

The  Northern  States  are  now  retaliating  upon  the 
Southern  States  their  conduct  from  1797  to  1800. 
It  is  a  mortification  to  me  to  see  what  servile  mimics 
they  are.  Their  newspapers,  pamphlets,  hand-bills, 
and  their  legislative  proceedings,  are  copied  from 
the  examples  set  them,  especially  by  Virginia  and 
Kentucky.  I  know  not  which  party  has  the  most 
unblushing  front,  the  most  lying  tongue,  or  the  most 
impudent  and  insolent,  not  to  say  the  most  seditious 
and  rebellious  pen. 

If  you  desire  explanation  on  any  of  the  points  in 
this  letter,  you  shall  have  them.  This  correspond- 
ence, I  hope,  will  be  concealed  as  long  as  Hutchin- 
son's and  Oliver's;  but  I  should  have  no  personal 
objection  to  the  publication  of  it  in  the  National 
Intelligencer.     I  am,  and  shall  be  for  life,  your  friend. 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  July  9,  181 3. 

Lord!  Lord!  What  can  I  do  with  so  much  Greek? 
When  I  was  of  your  age,  young  man,  i.  e.,  seven,  or 
eight,  or  nine  years  ago,  I  felt  a  kind  of  pang  of 
affection  for  one  of  the  flames  of  my  youth,  and  again 
paid  my  addresses  to  Isocrates,  and  Dionysius  of 
Hallicarnassus,  etc.,  etc.  I  collected  all  my  Lexi- 
cons and  Grammars,  and  sat  down  to  irepl  awO^™? 
ovofjuaTw,  etc.  In  this  way  I  amused  myself  for 
some  time;  but  I  found,  that  if  I  looked  a  word 
to-day,  in  less  than  a  week  I  had  to  look  it  again. 


Correspondence  3°3 

It  was  to  little  better  purpose  than  writing  letters 
on  a  pail  of  water. 

Whenever  I  sit  down  to  write  to  you,  I  am  pre- 
cisely in  the  situation  of  the  wood-cutter  on  Mount 
Ida.  I  cannot  see  wood  for  trees.  So  many  sub- 
jects crowd  upon  me,  that  I  know  not  with  which 
to  begin.  But  I  will  begin,  at  random,  with  Bel- 
sham;  who  is,  as  I  have  no  doubt,  a  man  of  merit. 
He  had  no  malice  against  you,  nor  any  thought  of 
doing  mischief ;  nor  has  he  done  any,  though  he  has 
been  imprudent.  The  truth  is,  the  dissenters  of  all 
denominations  in  England,  and  especially  the  Uni- 
tarians, are  cowed,  as  we  used  to  say  at  college. 
They  are  ridiculed,  insulted,  persecuted.  They  can 
scarcely  hold  their  heads  above  water.  They  catch 
at  straws  and  shadows  to  avoid  drowning.  Priestley 
sent  your  letter  to  Lindsay,  and  Belsham  printed  it 
from  the  same  motive,  i.  e.,  to  derive  some  counte- 
nance from  the  name  of  Jefferson.  Nor  has  it  done 
harm  here.  Priestley  says  to  Lindsay,  "You  see  he 
is  almost  one  of  us,  and  he  hopes  will  soon  be  alto- 
gether such  as  we  are."  Even  in  our  New  England, 
I  have  heard  a  high  federal  divine  say,  your  letters 
had  increased  his  respect  for  you. 

"  The  same  political  parties  which  now  agitate  the 
United  States,  have  existed  through  all  time;"  pre- 
cisely. And  this  is  precisely  the  complaint  in  the 
preface  to  the  first  volume  of  my  defence.  While 
all  other  sciences  have  advanced,  that  of  government 
is  at  a  stand;  little  better  understood;  little  better 


3°4  Jefferson's  Works 

practised  now,  than  three  or  four  thousand  years  ago. 
What  is  the  reason?  I  say,  parties  and  factions  will 
not  suffer,  or  permit  improvements  to  be  made.  As 
soon  as  one  man  hints  at  an  improvement,  his  rival 
opposes  it.  No  sooner  has  one  party  discovered  or 
invented  an  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  man,  or 
the  order  of  society,  than  the  opposite  party  belies 
it,  misconstrues,  misrepresents  it,  ridicules  it,  insults 
it,  and  persecutes  it.  Records  are  destroyed.  His- 
tories are  annihilated,  or  interpolated,  or  prohibited: 
sometimes  by  popes,  sometimes  by  emperors,  some- 
times by  aristocratical,  and  sometimes  by  demo- 
cratical  assemblies,  and  sometimes  by  mobs. 

Aristotle  wrote  the  history  of  eighteen  hundred 
republics  which  existed  before  his  time.  Cicero 
wrote  two  volumes  of  discourses  on  government, 
which,  perhaps,  were  worth  all  the  rest  of  his  works. 
The  works  of  Livy  and  Tacitus,  etc.,  that  are  lost, 
would  be  more  interesting  than  all  that  remain. 
Fifty  gospels  have  been  destroyed,  and  where  are 
St.  Luke's  world  of  books  that  have  been  written? 
If  you  ask  my  opinion  who  has  committed  all  the 
havoc,  I  will  answer  you  candidly, — Ecclesiastical 
and  Imperial  despotism  has  done  it,  to  conceal  their 
frauds. 

Why  are  the  histories  of  all  nations,  more  ancient 
than  the  Christian  era,  lost?  Who  destroyed  the 
Alexandrian  library?  L believe  that  Christian  priests, 
Jewish  rabbis,  Grecian  sages,  and  emperors,  had  as 
great  a  hand  in  it  as  Turks  and  Mahometans. 


Correspondence  3°5 

Democrats,  Rebels  and  Jacobins,  when  they  pos- 
sessed a  momentary  power,  have  shown  a  disposition 
both  to  destroy  and  forge  records  as  vandalical  as 
priests  and  despots.  Such  has  been  and  such  is  the 
world  we  live  in. 

I  recollect,  near  some  thirty  years  ago,  to  have 
said  carelessly  to  you  that  I  wished  I  could  find  time 
and  means  to  write  something  upon  aristocracy. 
You  seized  upon  the  idea,  and  encouraged  me  to  do 
it  with  all  that  friendly  warmth  that  is  natural  and 
habitual  to  you.  I  soon  began,  and  have  been 
writing  upon  that  subject  ever  since.  I  have  been 
so  unfortunate  as 'never  to  be  able  to  make  myself 
understood. 

Your  '"aplo-Toi"  are  the  most  difficult  animals  to 
manage  of  anything  in  the  whole  theory  and  practice 
of  government.  They  will  not  suffer  themselves  to 
be  governed.  They  not  only  exert  all  their  own 
subtlety,  industry  and  courage,  but  they  employ  the 
commonalty  to  knock  to  pieces  every  plan  and  model 
that  the  most  honest  architects  in  legislation  can 
invent  to  keep  them  within  bounds.  Both  patri- 
cians and  plebeians  are  as  furious  as  the  workmen  in 
England,  to  demolish  labor-saving  machinery. 

But  who  are  these  " apiVrot " ?  Who  shall  judge? 
Who  shall  select  these  choice  spirits  from  the  rest  of 
the  congregation  ?  Themselves  ?  We  must  first  find 
out  and  determine  who  themselves  are.  Shall  the 
congregation  choose  ?  Ask  Xenophon ;  perhaps  here- 
after I  may  quote  you  Greek.     Too  much  in  a  hurry 

VOL.  XIII-20 


306  Jefferson's  Works 

at  present,  English  must  suffice.  Xenophon  says 
that  the  ecclesia  always  choose  the  worst  men  they 
can  find,  because  none  others  will  do  their  dirty  work. 
This  wicked  motive  is  worse  than  birth  or  wealth. 
Here  I  want  to  quote  Greek  again.  But  the  day 
before  I  received  your  letter  of  June  27th,  I  gave  the 
book  to  George  Washington  Adams,  going  to  the 
academy  at  Hingham.  The  title  is  ROlkyj  h-o^o-is,  a 
collection  of  moral  sentences  from  all  the  most  an- 
cient Greek  poets.  In  one  of  the  oldest  of  them,  I 
read  in  Greek,  that  I  cannot  repeat,  a  couplet,  the 
sense  of  which  was:  "Nobility  in  men  is  worth  as 
much  as  it  is  in  horses,  asses,  or  rams ;  but  the  mean- 
est blooded  puppy  in  the  world,  if  he  gets  a  little 
money,  is  as  good  a  man  as  the  best  of  them."  Yet 
birth  and  wealth  together  have  prevailed  over  virtue 
and  talents  in  all  ages.  The  many  will  acknowledge 
no  other  "  o/ho-toi." 

Your  experience  of  this  truth  will  not  much  differ 
from  that  of  your  best  friend. 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  July  13,   1813. 

Dear  Sir, — Let  me  allude  to  one  circumstance 
more  in  one  of  your  letters  to  me,  before  I  touch  upon 
the  subject  of  religion  in  your  letters  to  Priestley. 

The  first  time  that  you  and  I  differed  in  opinion 
on  any  material  question,  was  after  your  arrival  from 
Europe,  and  that  point  was  the  French  Revolution. 


Coiiespondence  3°7 

You  were  well  persuaded  in  your  own  mind,  that 
the  nation  would  succeed  in  establishing  a  free  repub- 
lican government.  I  was  as  well  persuaded  in  mine, 
that  a  project  of  such  a  government  over  five  and 
twenty  millions  of  people,  when  four  and  twenty  j 
millions  and  five  hundred  thousand  of  them  could  • 
neither  read  nor  write,  was  as  unnatural,  irrational 
and  impracticable  as  it  would  be  over  the  elephants, 
lions,  tigers,  panthers,  wolves  and  bears  in  the  royal 
menagerie  at  Versailles.  Napoleon  has  lately  in- 
vented a  word  which  perfectly  expresses  my  opinion, 
at  that  time  and  ever  since.  He  calls  the  project 
Ideology;  and  John  Randolph,  though  he  was,  four- 
teen years  ago,  as  wild  an  enthusiast  for  equality  and 
fraternity  as  any  of  them,  appears  to  be  now  a  regen- 
erated proselyte  to  Napoleon's  opinion  and  mine, 
that  it  was  all  madness. 

The  Greeks,  in  their  allegorical  style,  said  that 
the  two  ladies,  Apicn-oKpaTia  and  %*0KpaTia,  always  in  a 
quarrel,  disturbed  every  neighborhood  with  their 
brawls.  It  is  a  fine  observation  of  yours,  that  "  Whig 
and  Tory  belong  to  natural  history."  Inequalities 
of  mind  and  body  are  so  established  by  God  Al- 
mighty, in  His  constitution  of  human  nature,  that 
no  art  or  policy  can  ever  plane  them  down  to  a  level. 
I  have  never  read  reasoning  more  absurd,  sophistry 
more  gross,  in  proof  of  the  Athanasian  creed,  or  Tran- 
substantiation,  than  the  subtle  labors  of  Helvetius 
and  Rousseau,  to  demonstrate  the  natural  equality 
of  mankind.     Jus  cuique,  the  golden  rule,  do  as  you 


3°8  Jefferson's  Works 

would  be  done  by,  is  all  the  equality  that  can  be 
supported  or  defended  by  reason,  or  reconciled  to 
common  sense. 

It  is  very  true,  as  you  justly  observe,  I  can  say 
nothing  new  on  this  or  any  other  subject  of  govern- 
ment. But  when  Lafayette  harangued  you  and  me 
and  John  Quincy  Adams,  through  a  whole  evening 
in  your  hotel  in  the  Cul  de  Sac,  at  Paris,  and  devel- 
oped the  plans  then  in  operation  to  reform  France, 
though  I  was  as  silent  as  you  were,  I  then  thought  I 
could  say  something  new  to  him. 

In  plain  truth,  I  was  astonished  at  the  grossness 
of  his  ignorance  of  government  and  history,  as  I  had 
been  for  years  before,  at  that  of  Turgot,  Rochefou- 
cauld, Condorcet  and  Franklin.  This  gross  Ideology 
of  them  all,  first  suggested  to  me  the  thought  and 
the  inclination  which  I  afterwards  hinted  to  you  in 
London,  of  writing  something  upon  aristocracy.  I 
was  restrained  for  years,  by  many  fearful  considera- 
tions. Who,  and  what  was  I?  A  man  of  no  name 
or  consideration  in  Europe.  The  manual  exercise  of 
writing  was  painful  and  distressing  to  me,  almost 
like  a  blow  on  the  elbow  or  knee.  My  style  was 
habitually  negligent,  unstudied,  unpolished ;  I  should 
make  enemies  of  all  the  French  patriots,  the  Dutch 
patriots,  the  English  republicans,  dissenters,  re- 
formers, call  them  what  you  will;  and  what  came 
nearer  home  to  my  bosom  than  all  the  rest,  I  knew 
I  should  give  offence  to  many  if  not  all  of  my  best 
friends  in  America,  and  very  probably  destroy  all 


Correspondence  3°9 

the  little  popularity  I  ever  had,  in  a  country  where 
popularity  had  more  omnipotence  than  the  British 
Parliament  assumed.  Where  should  I  get  the  neces- 
sary books?  What  printer  or  bookseller  would 
undertake  to  print  such  hazardous  writings? 

But  when  the  French  assembly  of  notables  met, 
and  I  saw  that  Turgot's  "  government  in  one  centre, 
and  that  centre  the  nation, "  a  sentence  as  mysterious 
or  as  contradictory  as  the  Athanasian  creed,  was 
about  to  take  place,  and  when  I  saw  that  Shay's 
rebellion  was  about  breaking  out  in  Massachusetts, 
and  when  I  saw  that  even  my  obscure  name  was 
often  quoted  in  France  as  an  advocate  for  simple 
democracy,  which  I  saw  that  the  sympathies  in 
America  had  caught  the  French  flame,  I  was  deter- 
mined to  wash  my  own  hands  as  clean  as  I  could  of 
all  this  foulness.  I  had  then  strong  forebodings 
that  I  was  sacrificing  all  the  honors  and  emoluments 
of  this  life,  and  so  it  has  happened,  but  not  in  so 
great  a  degree  as  I  apprehended. 

In  truth,  my  defence  of  the  constitutions  and 
"  discourses  on  Davila,"  laid  the  foundation  for  that 
immense  unpopularity  which  fell,  like  the  tower  of 
Siloam,  upon  me.  Your  steady  defence  of  demo- 
cratical  principles,  and  your  invariable  favorable 
opinion  of  the  French  revolution,  laid  the  foundation 
of  your  unbounded  popularity. 

Sic  transit  gloria  mundi!  Now  I  will  forfeit  my 
life,  if  you  can  find  one  sentence  in  my  defence  of  the 
constitutions,  or  the  discourses  on  Davila,  which,  by 


3IQ  Jefferson's  Works 

a  fair  construction,  can  favor  the  introduction  of 
hereditary  monarchy  or  aristocracy  into  America. 

They  were  all  written  to  support  and  strengthen 
the  constitutions  of  the  United  States. 

The  wood-cutter  on  Ida,  though  he  was  puzzled 
to  find  a  tree  to  chop  at  first,  I  presume  knew  how 
to  leave  off  when  he  was  weary.  But  I  never  know 
when  to  cease  when  I  begin  to  write  to  you. 


TO    DR.    SAMUEL    BROWN. 

MONTICELLO,    July    14,    1813. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favors  of  May  25th  and  June  13th 
have  been  duly  received,  as  also  the  first  supply  of 
Capsicum,  and  the  second  o  the  same  article  with 
other  seeds.  I  shall  set  great  store  by  the  Capsicum, 
if  it  is  hardy  enough  for  our  climate,  the  species  we 
have  heretofore  tried  being  too  tender.  The  Gal- 
vance  too,  will  be  particularly  attended  to,  as  it 
appears  very  different  from  what  we  cultivate  by 
that  name.  I  have  so  many  grandchildren  and 
others  who  might  be  endangered  by  the  poison  plant, 
that  I  think  the  risk  overbalances  the  curiosity  of 
trying  it.  The  most  elegant  thing  of  that  kind 
known  is  a  preparation  of  the  Jamestown  weed, 
Datura-Stramonium,  invented  by  the  French  in  the 
time  of  Robespierre.  Every  man  of  firmness  carried 
it  constantly  in  his  pocket  to  anticipate  the  guillo- 
tine. It  brings  on  the  sleep  of  death  as  quietly  as 
fatigue  does  the  ordinary  sleep,  without  the  least 


Correspondence  3 x  x 

struggle  or  motion.  Condorcet,  who  had  recourse 
to  it,  was  found  lifeless  on  his  bed  a  few  minutes 
after  his  landlady  had  left  him  there,  and  even  the 
slipper  which  she  had  observed  half  suspended  on 
his  foot,  was  not  shaken  off.  It  seems  far  preferable 
to  the  Venesection  of  the  Romans,  the  Hemlock  of 
the  Greeks,  and  the  Opium  of  the  Turks.  I  have 
never  been  able  to  learn  what  the  preparation  is, 
other  than  a  strong  concentration  of  its  lethiferous 
principle.  Could  such  a  medicament  be  restrained 
to  self-administration,  it  ought  not  to  be  kept  secret. 
There  are  ills  in  life  as  desperate  as  intolerable,  to 
which  it  would  be  the  rational  relief,  e.  g.,  the  invet- 
erate cancer.  As  a  relief  from  tyranny  indeed,  for 
which  the  Romans  recurred  to  it  in  the  times  of  the 
emperors,  it  has  been  a  wonder  to  me  that  they  did 
not  consider  a  poignard  in  the  breast  of  the  tyrant 
as  a  better  remedy. 

I  am  sorry  to  learn  hat  a  banditti  from  our 
country  are  taking  part  in  the  domestic  contests  of 
the  country  adjoining  you;  and  the  more  so  as  from 
the  known  laxity  of  execution  in  our  laws,  they 
cannot  be  punished,  although  the  law  has  provided 
punishment.  It  will  give  a  wrongful  hue  to  a  rightful 
act  of  taking  possession  of  Mobile,  and  will  be 
imputed  to  the  national  authority  as  Meranda's 
enterprise  was,  because  not  punished  by  it.  I  fear, 
too,  that  the  Spaniards  are  too  heavily  oppressed  by 
ignorance  and  superstition  for  self-government,  and 
whether  a  change  from  foreign  to  domestic  despotism 
will  be  to  their  advantage  remains  to  be  seen. 


312  Jefferson's  Works 

We  have  been  unfortunate  in  our  first  military 
essays  by  land.  Our  men  are  good,  but  our  generals 
unqualified.  Every  failure  we  have  incurred  has 
been  the  fault  of  the  general,  the  men  evincing 
courage  in  every  instance.  At  sea  we  have  rescued 
our  character;  but  the  chief  fruit  of  our  victories 
there  is  to  prove  to  those  who  have  fleets,  that  the 
English  are  not  invincible  at  sea,  as  Alexander  has 
proved  that  Bonaparte  is  not  invincible  by  land. 
How  much  to  be  lamented  that  the  world  cannot 
unite  and  destroy  these  two  land  and  sea  monsters! 
The  one  drenching  the  earth  with  human  gore,  the 
other  ravaging  the  ocean  with  lawless  piracies  and 
plunder.  Bonaparte  will  die,  and  the  nations  of 
Europe  will  recover  their  independence  with,  I  hope, 
better  governments.  But  the  English  government 
never  dies,  because  their  king  is  no  part  of  it,  he  is 
a  mere  formality,  and  the  real  government  is  the 
aristocracy  of  the  country,  for  their  House  of  Com- 
mons is  of  that  class.  Their  aim  is  to  claim  the 
dominion  of  the  ocean  by  conquest,  and  to  make 
every  vessel  navigating  it  pay  a  tribute  to  the 
support  of  the  fleet  necessary  to  maintain  that 
dominion,  to  which  their  own  resources  are  inade- 
quate. I  see  no  means  of  terminating  their  maritime 
dominion  and  tyranny  but  in  their  own  bankruptcy, 
which  I  hope  is  approaching.  But  I  turn  from  these 
painful  contemplations  to  the  more  pleasing  one  of 
my  constant  friendship  and  respect  for  you. 


Corresponden  ce  313 

JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  July  15,   1813. 

Never  mind  it,  my  dear  Sir,  if  I  write  four  letters 
to  your  one,  your  one  is  worth  more  than  my  four. 

It  is  true  that  I  can  say,  and  have  said,  nothing 
new  on  the  subject  of  government.  Yet  I  did  say 
in  my  defence  and  in  my  discourses  on  Davila, 
though  in  an  uncouth  style,  what  was  new  to  Locke, 
to  Harrington,  to  Milton,  to  Hume,  to  Montesquieu, 
to  Rousseau,  to  Turgot,  to  Condorcet,  to  Rochefou- 
cauld, to  Price,  to  Franklin,  and  to  yourself;  and  at 
that  time  to  almost  all  Europe  and  America.  I  can 
prove  all  this  by  indisputable  authorities  and  docu- 
ments. 

Writings  on  government  had  been  not  only 
neglected,  but  discountenanced  and  discouraged 
throughout  all  Europe,  from  the  restoration  of 
Charles  the  Second  in  England,  till  the  French 
revolution  commenced. 

The  English  commonwealth,  the  fate  of  Charles 
the  First,  and  the  military  despotism  of  Cromwell, 
had  sickened  mankind  with  disquisitions  on  govern- 
ment to  such  a  degree,  that  there  was  scarcely  a 
man  in  Europe  who  had  looked  into  the  subject. 

David  Hume  had  made  himself  so  fashionable 
with  the  aid  of  the  court  and  clergy,  Atheist,  as 
they  called  him,  and  by  his  elegant  lies  against  the 
republicans  and  gaudy  daubings  of  the  courtiers, 
that  he  had  nearly  laughed  into  contempt  Rapin, 


3H  Jefferson's  Works 

Sydney,  and  even  Locke.  It  was  ridiculous  and 
even  criminal  in  almost  all  Europe  to  speak  of  con- 
stitutions, or  writers  upon  the  principles  or  the 
fabrics  of  them. 

In  this  state  of  things  my  poor,  unprotected, 
unpatronized  books  appeared;  and  met  with  a  fate 
not  quite  so  cruel  as  I  had  anticipated.  They  were 
at  last,  however,  overborne  by  misrepresentations, 
and  will  perish  in  obscurity,  though  they  have  been 
translated  into  German  as  well  as  French.  The 
three  emperors  of  Europe,  the  Prince  Regents,  and 
all  the  ruling  powers,  would  no  more  countenance  or 
tolerate  such  writings,  than  the  Pope,  the  emperor 
of  Haiti,  Ben  Austin,  or  Tom  Paine. 

The  nations  of  Europe  appeared  to  me,  when  I 
was  among  them,  from  the  beginning  of  1778,  to 
1785,  i.  e.  to  the  commencement  of  the  troubles  in 
France,  to  be  advancing  by  slow  but  sure  steps 
towards  an  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  man  in 
religion  and  government,  in  liberty,  equality,  fra- 
ternity, knowledge,  civilization  and  humanity. 

The  French  Revolution  I  dreaded,  because  I  was 
sure  it  would  not  only  arrest  the  progress  of  improve- 
ment, but  give  it  a  retrograde  course,  for  at  least  a 
century,  if  not  many  centuries.  The  French  patriots 
appeared  to  me  like  young  scholars  from  a  college, 
or  sailors  flushed  with  recent  pay  or  prize  money, 
mounted  on  wild  horses,  lashing  and  spurring  till 
they  would  kill  the  horses,  and  break  their  own 
necks. 


Correspondence  3  *  5 

Let  me  now  ask  you  very  seriously,  my  friend, 
where  are  now,  in  1813,  the  perfection  and  the 
perfectability  of  human  nature?  Where  is  now  the 
progress  of  the  human  mind?  Where  is  the  ameli- 
oration of  society?  Where  the  augmentations  of 
human  comforts?  Where  the  diminutions  of  human 
pains  and  miseries  ?  I  know  not  whether  the  last 
day  of  Dr.  Young  can  exhibit  to  a  mind  unstaid  by 
philosophy  and  religion  [for  I  hold  there  can  be  no 
philosophy  without  religion],  more  terrors  than  the 
present  state  of  the  world.  When,  where,  and  how 
is  the  present  chaos  to  be  arranged  into  order? 
There  is  not,  there  cannot  be,  a  greater  abuse  of 
words  than  to  call  the  writings  of  Callender,  Paine, 
Austin  and  Lowell,  or.  the  speeches  of  Ned  Living- 
ston and  John  Randolph,  public  discussions.  The 
ravings  and  rantings  of  Bedlam  merit  the  character 
as  well;  and  yet  Joel  Barlow  was  about  to  record 
Tom  Paine  as  the  great  author  of  the  American 
Revolution!  If  he  was,  I  desire  that  my  name  may 
be  blotted  out  forever  from  its  records. 

You  and  I  ought  not  to  die  before  we  have 
explained  ourselves  to  each  other. 

I  shall  come  to  the  subject  of  religion  by-and-bye. 
Your  friend. 

I  have  been  looking  for  some  time  for  a  space  in 
my  good  husband's  letters  to  add  the  regards  of  an 
old  friend,  which  are  still  cherished  and  preserved 
through  all  the  changes  and  vicissitudes  which  have 


3i  6  Jefferson's  vWorlc& 

taken  place  since  we  first  became  acquainted,  and 
will,  I  trust,  remain  as  long  as 

A.  Adams. 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS   JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  July  1 6,   1813. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  letters  to  Priestley  have  in- 
creased my  grief,  if  that  were  possible,  for  the  loss 
of  Rush.  Had  he  lived,  I  would  have  stimulated 
him  to  insist  on  your  promise  to  him,  to  write  him 
on  the  subject  of  religion.     Your  plan  I  admire. 

In  your  letter  to  Priestley  of  March  21st,  1801, 
dated  at  Washington,  you  call  "The  Christian  Phi- 
losophy, the  most  sublime  and  benevolent,  but  the 
most  perverted  system  that  ever  shone  upon  man." 
That  it  is  the  most  sublime  and  benevolent,  I  agree. 
But  whether  it  has  been  more  perverted  than  that 
of  Moses,  of  Confucius,  of  Zoroaster,  of  Sanchoni- 
athan,  of  Numa,  of  Mahomet,  of  the  Druids,  of  the 
Hindoos,  etc.,  etc.,  I  cannot  as  yet  determine, 
because  I  am  not  sufficiently  acquainted  with  these 
systems,  or  the  history  of  their  effects,  to  form  a 
decisive  opinion  of  the  result  of  the  comparison. 

In  your  letter  dated  Washington,  April  9,  1803, 
you  say,  "  In  consequence  of  some  conversations 
with  Dr.  Rush,  in  the  years  1798-99,  I  had  promised 
some  day  to  write  to  him  a  letter,  giving  him  my 
view  of  the  Christian  system.  I  have  reflected  often 
on  it  since,  and  even  sketched  the  outline  in  my  own 


Correspondence  3 1 7 

mind.  I  should  first  take  a  general  view  of  the 
moral  doctrines  of  the  most  remarkable  of  the  ancient 
philosophers,  of  whose  ethics  we  have  sufficient  infor- 
mation to  make  an  estimate;  say  of  Pythagoras, 
Epicurus,  Epictetus,  Socrates,  Cicero,  Seneca,  An- 
tonius.  I  should  do  justice  to  the  branches  of 
morality  they  have  treated  well,  but  point  out  the 
importance  of  those  in  which  they  are  deficient.  I 
should  then  take  a  view  of  the  Deism  and  Ethics  of 
the  Jews,  and  show  in  what  a  degraded  state  they 
were,  and  the  necessity  they  presented  of  a  reforma- 
tion. I  should  proceed  to  a  view  of  the  life,  char- 
acter, and  doctrines  of  Jesus,  who,  sensible  of  the 
incorrectness  of  their  ideas  of  the  Deity,  and  of 
morality,  endeavored  to  bring  them  to  the  principles 
of  a  pure  Deism,  and  juster  notions  of  the  attributes 
of  God — to  reform  their  moral  doctrines  to  the 
standard  of  reason,  justice,  and  philanthropy,  and 
to  inculcate  the  belief  of  a  future  state.  This  view 
would  purposely  omit  the  question  of  his  Divinity, 
and  even  of  his  inspiration.  To  do  him  justice,  it 
would  be  necessary  to  remark  the  disadvantages  his 
doctrines  have  to  encounter,  not  having  been  com- 
mitted to  writing  by  himself,  but  by  the  most  unlet- 
tered of  men,  by  memory,  long  after  they  had  heard 
them  from  him,  when  much  was  forgotten,  much 
misunderstood,  and  presented  in  very  paradoxical 
shapes ;  yet  such  are  the  fragments  remaining,  as  to 
show  a  master  workman,  and  that  his  system  of 
morality  was   the   most  benevolent   and   sublime, 


3 1 8  Jeff  efsojfsr  Works 

probably,  that  has  been  ever  taught,  and  more  per- 
fect than  those  of  any  of  the  ancient  philosophers. 
His  character  and  doctrines  have  received  still 
greater  injury  from  those  who  pretend  to  be  his 
special  disciples,  and  who  have  disfigured  and  sophis- 
ticated his  actions  and  precepts  from  views  of 
personal  interest,  so  as  to  induce  the  unthinking 
part  of  mankind  to  throw  off  the  whole  system  in 
disgust,  and  to  pass  sentence,  as  an  impostor,  on 
the  most  innocent,  the  most  benevolent,  the  most 
eloquent  and  sublime  character  that  has  ever  been 
exhibited  to  man.     This  is  the  outline!" 

"Sancte  Socrate!   ora  pro  nobis!" — Erasmus. 

Priestley  in  his  letter  to  Lindsay,  enclosing  a  copy 
of  your  letter  to  him,  says,  "  He  is  generally  con- 
sidered an  unbeliever;  if  so,  however,  he  cannot  be 
far  from  us,  and  I  hope  in  the  way  to  be  not  only 
almost,  but  altogether  what  we  are.  He  now  attends 
public  worship  very  regularly,  and  his  moral  conduct 
was  never  impeached." 

Now,  I  see  not  but  you  are  as  good  a  Christian  as 
Priestley  and  Lindsay.  Piety  and  morality  were  the 
end  and  object  of  the  Christian  system,  according  to 
them,  and  according  to  you.  They  believed  in  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus,  in  his  miracles,  and  in  his 
inspiration;  but  what  inspiration?  Not  all  that  is 
recorded  in  the  New  Testament,  nor  the  Old.  They 
have  not  yet  told  us  how  much  they  believe,  or  how 
much  they  doubt  or  disbelieve.  They  have  not  told 
us  how  much  allegory,  how  much  parable,  they  find, 


Correspondence  3  *9 

nor  how  they  explain  them  all,  in  the  Old  Testament 
or  the  New. 

John  Quincy  Adams  has  written  for  years  to  his 
two  sons,  boys  of  ten  and  twelve,  a  series  of  letters, 
in  which  he  pursues  a  plan  more  extensive  than 
yours;  but  agreeing  in  most  of  the  essential  points. 
I  wish  these  letters  could  be  preserved  in  the  bosoms 
of  his  boys,  but  women  and  priests  will  get  them; 
and  I  expect,  if  he  makes  a  peace,  he  will  be  obliged 
to  retire  like  a  Jay,  to  study  prophecies  to  the  end 
of  his  life.  I  have  more  to  say  on  this  subject  of 
religion. 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  July  18,  1813. 

Dear  Sir, — I  have  more  to  say  on  religion.  For 
more  than  sixty  years  I  have  been  attentive  to  this 
great  subject.  Controversies  between  Calvinists  and 
Arminians,  Trinitarians  and  Unitarians,  Deists  and 
Christians,  Atheists  and  both,  have  attracted  my 
attention,  whenever  the  singular  life  I  have  led 
would  admit,  to  all  these  questions.  The  history  of 
this  little  village  of  Quincy,  if  it  were  worth  recording, 
would  explain  to  you  how  this  happened.  I  think 
I  can  now  say  I  have  read  away  bigotry,  if  not 
enthusiasm.  What  does  Priestley  mean  by  an  unbe- 
liever, when  he  applies  it  to  you?  How  much  did 
he  "unbelieve"  himself?  Gibbon  had  him  right, 
when  he  determined  his  creed  "  scanty."     We  are  to 


32°  Jefferson's  Works 

understand,  no  doubt,  that  he  believed  the  resur- 
rection of  Jesus;  some  of  his  miracles;  his  inspira- 
tion, but  in  what  degree?  He  did  not  believe  in  the 
inspiration  of  the  writings  that  contain  his  history, 
yet  he  believed  in  the  Apocalyptic  beast,  and  he 
believed  as  much  as  he  pleased  in  the  writings  of 
Daniel  and  John.  This  great,  excellent,  and  extraor- 
dinary man,  whom  I  sincerely  loved,  esteemed,  and 
respected,  was  really  a  phenomenon;  a  comet  in  the 
system,  like  Voltaire,  Bolingbroke,  and  Hume.  Had 
Bolingbroke  or  Voltaire  taken  him  in  hand,  what 
would  they  have  made  of  him  and  his  creed. 

I  do  not  believe  you  have  read  much  of  Priestley's 
'  'corruptions  of  Christianity,"  his  history  of  early 
opinions  of  Jesus  Christ,  his  predestination,  his 
no-soul  system,  or  his  controversy  with  Horsley. 

I  have  been  a  diligent  student  for  many  years  in 
books  whose  titles  you  have  never  seen.  In  Priest- 
ley's and  Lindsay's  writings;  in  Farmer,  in  Cappe,  in 
Tucker's  or  Edwards'  searches;  Light  of  Nature 
pursued;  in  Edwards  and  Hopkins,  and  lately  in 
Ezra  Styles  Ely;  his  reverend  and  learned  pane- 
gyrists, and  his  elegant  and  spirited  opponents.  I 
am  not  wholly  uninformed  of  the  controversies  in 
Germany,  and  the  learned  researches  of  universities 
and  professors,  in  which  the  sanctity  of  the  Bible 
and  the  inspiration  of  its  authors  are  taken  for 
granted,  or  waived,  or  admitted,  or  not  denied. 
I  have  also  read  Condorcet's  Progress  of  the  Human 
Mind. 


Correspondence  3  2  * 

Now,  what  is  all  this  to  you?  No  more,  than  if  I 
should  tell  you' that  I  read  Dr.  Clark,  and  Dr.  Water- 
land,  and  Emlyn,  and  Leland's  view  or  review  of 
the  Deistical  writers  more  than  fifty  years  ago; 
which  is  a  literal  truth.  I  blame  you  not  for  reading 
Euclid  and  Newton,  Thucydides  and  Theocritus;  for 
I  believe  you  will  find  as  much  entertainment  and 
instruction  in  them,  as  I  have  found  in  my  theo- 
logical and  ecclesiastical  instructors;  or  even  as  I 
have  found  in  a  profound  investigation  of  the  life, 
writings,  and  doctrines  of  Erasmus,  whose  disciples 
were  Milton,  Harrington,  Selden,  St.  John,  the  Chief 
Justice,  father  of  Bolingbroke,  and  others,  the 
choicest  spirits  of  their  age;  or  in  Le  Harpe's 
history  of  the  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
or  in  Van  der  Kemp's  vast  map  of  the  causes  of  the 
revolutionary  spirit  in  the  same  and  preceding 
centuries.  These  things  are  to  me,  at  present,  the 
marbles  and  nine-pins  of  old  age ;  I  will  not  say  the 
beads  and  prayer-books. 

I  agree  with  you,  as  far  as  you  go,  most  cordially, 
and  I  think  solidly.  How  much  farther  I  go,  how 
much  more  I  believe  than  you,  I  may  explain  in  a 
future  letter.  Thus  much  I  will  say  at  present,  I 
have  found  so  many  difficulties,  that  I  am  not 
astonished  at  your  stopping  where  you  are;  and  so 
far  from  sentencing  you  to  perdition,  I  hope  soon  to 
meet  you  in  another  country. 


to*,  xni-fi 


322  Jefferson's  Works 

JOHN  ADAMS  TO  THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  July  22,  1813. 

Dear  Sir, — Dr.  Priestley,  in  a  letter  to  Mr. 
Lindsay,  Northumberland,  November  4,  1803,  says: 

"As  you  were  pleased  with  my  comparison  of 
Socrates  and  Jesus,  I  have  begun  to  carry  the  same 
comparison  to  all  the  heathen  moralists,  and  I  have 
all  the  books  that  I  want  for  the  purpose  except 
Simplicius  and  Arrian  on  Epictetus,  and  them  I 
hope  to  get  from  a  library  in  Philadelphia;  lest, 
however,  I  should  fail  there,  I  wish  you  or  Mr. 
Belsham  would  procure  and  send  them  from  London. 
While  I  am  capable  of  anything  I  cannot  be  idle, 
and  I  do  not  know  that  I  can  do  anything  better. 
This,  too,  is  an  undertaking  that  Mr.  Jefferson 
recommends  to  me." 

In  another  letter,  dated  Northumberland,  January 
1 6th,  1804,  Dr.  Priestley  says  to  Mr.  Lindsay: 

"  I  have  now  finished  and  transcribed  for  the 
press,  my  comparison  of  the  Grecian  philosophers 
with  those  of  revelation,  and  with  more  ease  and 
more  to  my  own  satisfaction  than  I  expected.  They 
who  liked  my  pamphlet  entitled,  '  Socrates  and  Jesus 
compared,'  will  not,  I  flatter  myself,  dislike  this 
work.  It  has  the  same  object  and  completes  the 
scheme.  It  has  increased  my  own  sense  of  the 
unspeakable  value  of  revelation,  and  must,  I  think, 
that  of  every  person  who  will  give  due  attention  to 
the  subject." 


Correspondence  3 2  3 

I  have  now  given  you  all  that  relates  to  yourself 
in  Priestley's  letters. 

This  was  possibly,  and  not  improbably,  the  last 
letter  this  great,  this  learned,  indefatigable,  most 
excellent  and  extraordinary  man  ever  wrote,  for  on 
the  4th  of  February,  1804,  he  was  released  from  his 
labors  and  sufferings.  Peace,  rest,  joy  and  glory  to 
his  soul!  For  I  believe  he  had  one,  and  one  of  the 
greatest. 

I  regret,  oh  how  I  lament  that  he  did  not  live  to 
publish  this  work!  It  must  exist  in  manuscript. 
Cooper  must  know  something  of  it.  Can  you  learn 
from  him  where  it  is,  and  get  it  printed? 

I  hope  you  will  still  perform  your  promise  to 
Doctor  Rush. 

If  Priestley  had  lived,  I  should  certainly  have 
corresponded  with  him.  His  friend  Cooper,  who, 
unfortunately  for  him  and  me  and  you,  had  as  fatal 
an  influence  over  him  as  Hamilton  had  over  Wash- 
ington, and  whose  rash  hot  head  led  Priestley  into 
all  his  misfortunes  and  most  his  errors  in  conduct, 
could  not  have  prevented  explanations  between 
Priestley  and  me. 

I  should  propose  to  him  a  thousand,  a  million 
questions.  And  no  man  was  more  capable  or  better 
disposed  to  answer  them  candidly  than  Dr.  Priestley. 

Scarcely  anything  that  has  happened  to  me  in  my 
curious  life,  has  made  a  deeper  impression  upon  me 
than  that  such  a  learned,  ingenious,  scientific  and 


324  Jefferson's  Works 

talented  madcap  as  Cooper,  could  have  influence 
enough  to  make  Priestley  my  enemy. 

I  will  not  yet  communicate  to  you  more  than  a 
specimen  of  the  questions  I  would  have  asked 
Priestley. 

One  is:  Learned  and  scientific,  Sir! — You  have 
written  largely  about  matter  and  spirit,  and  have 
concluded  there  is  no  human  soul.  Will  you  please 
to  inform  me  what  matter  is?  and  what  spirit  is? 
Unless  we  know  the  meaning  of  words,  we  cannot 
reason  in  or  about  words. 

I  shall  never  send  you  all  my  questions  that  I 
would  put  to  Priestley,  because  they  are  innumerable; 
but  I  may  hereafter  send  you  two  or  three. 

I  am,  in  perfect  charity,  your  old  friend. 


JOHN  ADAMS  TO  THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  August  9,   1813. 

I  believe  I  told  you  in  my  last  that  I  had  given 
you  all  in  Lindsay's  memorial  that  interested  you,  but 
I  was  mistaken.  In  Priestley's  letter  to  Lindsay, 
December  19th,  1803,  I  find  this  paragraph: 

"With  the  work  I  am  now  composing,  I  go  on 
much  faster  and  better  than  I  expected,  so  that  in 
two  or  three  months,  if  my  health  continues  as  it 
now  is,  I  hope  to  have  it  ready  for  the  press,  though 
I  shall  hardly  proceed  to  print  it  till  we  have  dis- 
patched the  notes. 

"It  is  upon  the  same  plan  with  that  of  Socrates 


Correspondence  3 2  5 

and  Jesus  compared,  considering  all  the  more  dis- 
tinguished of  the  Grecian  sects  of  philosophy,  till 
the  establishment  of  Christianity  in  the  Roman 
empire.  If  you  liked  that  pamphlet,  I  flatter  myself 
you  will  like  this. 

'I  hope  it  is  calculated  to  show,  in  a  peculiarly 
striking  light,  the  great  advantage  of  revelation,  and 
that  it  will  make  an  impression  on  candid  unbelievers 
if  they  will  read. 

"But  I  find  few  that  will  trouble  themselves  to 
read  anything  on  the  subject,  which,  considering  the 
great  magnitude  and  interesting  nature  of  the  sub- 
ject, is  a  proof  of  a  very  improper  state  of  mind, 
unworthy  of  a  rational  being." 

I  send  you  this  extract  for  several  reasons.  First, 
because  you  set  him  upon  this  work.  Secondly, 
because  I  wish  you  to  endeavor  to  bring  it  to  light 
and  get  it  printed.  Thirdly,  because  I  wish  it  may 
stimulate  you  to  pursue  your  own  plan  which  you 
promised  to  Dr.  Rush. 

I  have  not  seen  any  work  which  expressly  com- 
pares the  morality  of  the  Old  Testament  with  that 
of  the  New,  in  all  their  branches,  nor  either  with  that 
of  the  ancient  philosophers.  Comparisons  with  the 
Chinese,  the  East  Indians,  the  Africans,  the  West 
Indians,  etc.,  would  be  more  difficult;  with  more 
ancient  nations  impossible.  The  documents  are 
destroyed. 


326  Jefferson's  Works 

TO    ISAAC    MCPHERSON. 

MONTICELLO,    AugUSt    13,    1813. 

Sir, — Your  letter  of  August  3d  asking  information 
on  the  subject  of  Mr.  Oliver  Evans'  exclusive  right  to 
the  use  of  what  he  calls  his  Elevators,  Conveyers,  and 
Hopper-boys,  has  been  duly  received.  My  wish  to 
see  new  inventions  encouraged,  and  old  ones  brought 
again  into  useful  notice,  has  made  me  regret  the  cir- 
cumstances which  have  followed  the  expiration  of 
his  first  patent.  I  did  not  expect  the  retrospection 
which  has  been  given  to  the  reviving  law.  For 
although  the  second  proviso  seemed  not  so  clear 
as  it  ought  to  have  been,  yet  it  appeared  susceptible 
of  a  just  construction;  and  the  retrospective  one 
being  contrary  to  natural  right,  it  was  understood 
to  be  a  rule  of  law  that  where  the  words  of  a  statute 
admit  of  two  constructions,  the  one  just  and  the 
other  unjust,  the  former  is  to  be  given  them.  The 
first  proviso  takes  care  of  those  who  had  lawfully 
used  Evans'  improvements  under  the  first  patent; 
the  second  was  meant  for  those  who  had  lawfully 
erected  and  used  them  after  that  patent  expired, 
declaring  they  "should  not  be  liable  to  damages 
therefor."  These  words  may  indeed  be  restrained 
to  uses  already  past,  but  as  there  is  parity  of  reason 
for  those  to  come,  there  should  be  parity  of  law. 
Every  man  should  be  protected  in  his  lawful  acts,  and 
be  certain  that  no  ex  post  facto  law  shall  punish  or 
endamage  him  for  them.  But  he  is  endamaged,  if 
forbidden  to  use  a  machine  lawfully  erected,  at  con- 


Correspondence  3 2  7 

siderable  expense,  unless  he  will  pay  a  new  and  un- 
expected price  for  it.  The  proviso  says  that  he  who 
erected  and  used  lawfully  should  not  be  liable  to  pay 
damages.  But  if  the  proviso  had  been  omitted, 
would  not  the  law,  construed  by  natural  equity,  have 
said  the  same  thing?  In  truth  both  provisos  are  use- 
less. And  shall  useless  provisos,  inserted  pro  majori 
cautela  only,  authorize  inferences  against  justice? 
The  sentiment  that  ex  post  facto  laws  are  against 
natural  right,  is  so  strong  in  the  United  States,  that 
few,  if  any,  of  the  State  constitutions  have  failed  to 
proscribe  them.  The  federal  constitution  indeed 
interdicts  them  in  criminal  cases  only ;  but  they  are 
equally  unjust  in  civil  as  in  criminal  cases,  and  the 
omission  of  a  caution  which  would  have  been  right, 
does  not  justify  the  doing  what  is  wrong.  Nor  ought 
it  to  be  presumed  that  the  legislature  meant  to  use 
a  phrase  in  an  unjustifiable  sense,  if  by  rules  of  con- 
struction it  can  be  ever  strained  to  what  is  just. 
The  law  books  abound  with  similar  instances  of  the 
care  the  judges  take  of  the  public  integrity.  Laws, 
moreover,  abridging  the  natural  right  of  the  citizen, 
should  be  restrained  by  rigorous  constructions  within 
their  narrowest  limits. 

Your  letter,  however,  points  to  a  much  broader 
question,  whether  what  have  received  from  Mr. 
Evans  the  new  and  proper  name  of  Elevators,  are 
of  his  invention.  Because,  if  they  are  not,  his  patent 
gives  him  no  right  to  obstruct  others  in  the  use  of 
what  they  possessed  before.     I  assume  it  is  a  Lemma, 

f 


328  Jefferson's  Works 

that  it  is  the  invention  of  the  machine  itself,  which 
is  to  give  a  patent  right,  and  not  the  application  of 
it  to  any  particular  purpose,  of  which  it  is  susceptible. 
If  one  person  invents  a  knife  convenient  for  pointing 
our  pens,  another  cannot  have  a  patent  right  for  the 
same  knife  to  point  our  pencils.  A  compass  was 
invented  for  navigating  the  sea;  another  could  not 
have  a  patent  right  for  using  it  to  survey  land.  A 
machine  for  threshing  wheat  has  been  invented  in 
Scotland ;  a  second  person  cannot  get  a  patent  right 
for  the  same  machine  to  thresh  oats,  a  third  rye,  a 
fourth  peas,  a  fifth  clover,  etc.  A  string  of  buckets 
is  invented  and  used  for  raising  water,  ore,  etc. ;  can 
a  second  have  a  patent  right  to  the  same  machine  for 
raising  wheat,  a  third  oats,  a  fourth  rye,  a  fifth  peas, 
etc.?  The  question  then  whether  such  a  string  of 
buckets  was  invented  first  by  Oliver  Evans,  is  a  mere 
question  of  fact  in  mathematical  history.  Now, 
turning  to  such  books  only  as  I  happen  to  possess,  I 
find  abundant  proof  that  this  simple  machinery  has 
been  in  use  from  time  immemorial.  Doctor  Shaw, 
who  visited  Egypt  and  the  Barbary  coast  in  the 
years  1727-8-9,  in  the  margin  of  his  map  of  Egypt, 
gives  us  the  figure  of  what  he  calls  a  Persian  wheel, 
which  is  a  string  of  round  cups  or  buckets  hanging 
on  a  pulley,  over  which  they  revolved,  bringing  up 
water  from  a  well  and  delivering  it  into  a  trough 
above.  He  found  this  used  at  Cairo,  in  a  well  264 
feet  deep,  which  the  inhabitants  believe  to  have  been 
the  work  of  the  patriarch  Joseph.     Shaw's  travels, 


Correspondence  3  29 

341,  Oxford  edition  of  1738  in  folio,  and  the  Uni- 
versal History,  I.  416,  speaking  of  the  manner  of 
watering  the  higher  lands  in  Egypt,  says,  "formerly 
they  made  use  of  Archimedes'  screw,  thence  named 
the  Egyptian  pump,  but  they  now  generally  use 
wheels  (wallowers)  which  carry  a  rope  or  chain  of 
earthen  pots  holding  about  seven  or  eight  quarts 
apiece,  and  draw  the  water  from  the  canals.  There 
are  besides  a  vast  number  of  wells  in  Egypt,  from 
which  the  water  is  drawn  in  the  same  manner  to 
water  the  gardens  and  fruit  trees;  so  that  it  is  no 
exaggeration  to  say,  that  there  are  in  Egypt  above 
200,000  oxen  daily  employed  in  this  labor."  Shaw's 
name  of  Persian  wheel  has  been  since  given  more 
particularly  to  a  wheel  with  buckets,  either  fixed  or 
suspended  on  pins,  at  its  periphery.  Mortimer's 
husbandry,  I.  18,  Duhamel  III.  II.,  Ferguson's 
Mechanic's  plate,  XIII;  but  his  figure,  and  the 
verbal  description  of  the  Universal  History,  prove 
that  the  string  of  buckets  is  meant  under  that  name. 
His  figure  differs  from  Evans'  construction  in  the 
circumstances  of  the  buckets  being  round,  and  strung 
through  their  bottom  on  a  chain.  But  it  is  the  prin- 
ciple, to  wit,  a  string  of  buckets,  which  constitutes 
the  invention,  not  the  form  of  the  buckets,  round, 
square,  or  hexagon;  nor  the  manner  of  attaching 
them,  nor  the  material  of  the  connecting  band, 
whether  chain,  rope,  or  leather.  Vitruvius,  L.  x. 
c.  9,  describes  this  machinery  as  a  windlass,  on  which 
is  a  chain  descending  to  the  water,  with  vessels  of 


33°  Jefferson's  Works 

copper  attached  to  it ;  the  windlass  being  turned,  the 
chain  moving  on  it  will  raise  the  vessel,  which  in 
passing  over  the  windlass  will  empty  the  water  they 
have  brought  up  into  a  reservoir.  And  Perrault,  in 
his  edition  of  Vitruvius,,  Paris,  1684,  folio  plates  61, 
62,  gives  us  three  forms  of  these  water  elevators,  in 
one  of  which  the  buckets  are  square,  as  Mr.  Evans' 
are.  Bossuet,  Histoire  des  Mathematiques,  i.  86, 
says,  "  the  drum  wheel,  the  wheel  with  buckets  and 
the  Chapelets,  are  hydraulic  machines  which  come 
to  us  from  the  ancients.  But  we  are  ignorant  of  the 
time  when  they  began  to  be  put  into  use."  The 
Chapelets  are  the  revolving  bands  of  the  buckets 
which  Shaw  calls  the  Persian  wheel,  the  moderns  a 
chain-pump,  and  Mr.  Evans  elevators.  The  next 
of  my  books  in  which  I  find  these  elevators  is  Wolf's 
Cours  de  Mathematiques,  i.  370,  and  plate  1,  Paris, 
1747,  8vo;  here  are  two  forms.  In  one  of  them 
the  buckets  are  square,  attached  to  two  chains,  pass- 
ing over  a  cylinder  or  wallower  at  top,  and  under 
another  at  bottom,  by  which  they  are  made  to  re- 
volve. It  is  a  nearly  exact  representation  of  Evans' 
Elevators.  But  a  more  exact  one  is  to  be  seen  in 
Desagulier's  Experimental  Philosophy,  ii.  plate  34; 
in  the  Encyclopedic  de  Diderot  et  D'Alembert,  8vo 
edition  of  Lausanne,  first  volume  of  plates  in  the 
four  subscribed  Hydraulique.  Norie,  is  one  where 
round  eastern  pots  are  tied  by  their  collars  between 
two  endless  ropes  suspended  on  a  revolving  lantern 
or  wallower.     This  is  said  to  have  been  used  for 


Correspondence  33 l 

raising  ore  out  of  a  mine.  In  a  book  which  I  do  not 
possess,  L 'Architecture  Hidraulique  de  Belidor,  the 
second  volume  of  which  is  said  [De  la  Lande's  con« 
tinuation  of  Montuclas'  Histoire  de  Mathematiquesv 
iii.  711]  to  contain  a  detail  of  all  the  pumps,  ancient 
and  modern,  hydraulic  machines,  fountains,  wells, 
etc.,  I  have  no  doubt  this  Persian  wheel,  chain  pump, 
chapelets,  elevators,  by  whichever  name  you  choose 
to  call  it,  will  be  found  in  various  forms.  The  last 
book  I  have  to  quote  for  it  is  Prony's  Architecture 
Hydraulique  i.,  Avertissement  vii.,  and  §  648,  649, 
650.  In  the  latter  of  which  passages  he  observes 
that  the  first  idea  which  occurs  for  raising  water  is 
to  lift  it  in  a  bucket  by  hand.  When  the  water  lies 
too  deep  to  be  reached  by  hand,  the  bucket  is  sus 
pended  by  a  chain  and  let  down  over  a  pulley  or  wind- 
lass. If  it  be  desired  to  raise  .a  continued  stream  of 
water,  the  simplest  means  which  offers  itself  to  the 
mind  is  to  attach  to  an  endless  chain  or  cord  a  num- 
ber of  pots  or  buckets,  so  disposed  that,  the  chain 
being  suspended  on  a  lanthorn  or  wallower  above, 
and  plunged  in  water  below,  the  buckets  may  descend 
and  ascend  alternately,  filling  themselves  at  bottom 
and  emptying  at  a  certain  height  above,  so  as  to 
give  a  constant  stream.  Some  years  before  the  date 
of  Mr.  Evans'  patent,  a  Mr.  Martin  of  Caroline  county 
in  this  State,  constructed  a  drill-plough,  in  which 
he  used  the  band  of  buckets  for  elevating  the  grain 
from  the  box  into  the  funnel,  which  let  them  down 
into  the  furrow.     He  had  bands  with  different  sets 


332  Jefferson's  Works 

of  buckets  adapted  to  the  size  of  peas,  of  turnip  seed, 
etc.  I  have  used  this  machine  for  sowing  Benni  seed 
also,  and  propose  to  have  a  band  of  buckets  for  drill- 
ing Indian  corn,  and  another  for  wheat.  Is  it  pos- 
sible that  in  doing  this  I  shall  infringe  Mr.  Evans' 
patent?  That  I  can  be  debarred  of  any  use  to  which 
I  might  have  applied  my  drill,  when  I  bought  it,  by 
a  patent  issued  after  I  bought  it? 

These  verbal  descriptions,  applying  so  exactly  to 
Mr.  Evans'  elevators,  and  the  drawings  exhibited 
to  the  eye,  flash  conviction  both  on  reason  and  the 
senses  that  there  is  nothing  new  in  these  elevators 
but  their  being  strung  together  on  a  strap  of  leather. 
If  this  strap  of  leather  be  an  invention,  entitling  the 
inventor  to  a  patent  right,  it  can  only  extend  to  the 
strap,  and  the  use  of  the  string  of  buckets  must 
remain  free  to  be  connected  by  chains,  ropes,  a  strap 
of  hempen  girthing,  or  any  other  substance  except 
leather.  But,  indeed,  Mr.  Martin  had  before  used 
the  strap  of  leather. 

The  screw  of  Archimedes  is  as  ancient,  at  least,  as 
the  age  of  that  mathematician,  who  died  more  than 
2,000  years  ago.  Diodorus  Siculus  speaks  of  it, 
L.  i.,  p.  21,  and  L.  v.,  p.  217,  of  Stevens'  edition 
of  1559,  folio;  and  Vitruvius,  xii.  The  cutting  of  its 
spiral  worm  into  sections  for  conveying  flour  or  grain, 
seems  to  have  been  an  invention  of  Mr.  Evans,  and 
to  be  a  fair  subject  of  a  patent  right.  But  it  cannot 
take  away  from  others  the  use  of  Archimedes'  screw 
with  its  perpetual  spiral,  for  any  purposes  Qf  which 
it  is  susceptible. 


Correspondence  333 

The  hopper-boy  is  an  useful  machine,  and  so  far 
as  I  know,  original. 

It  has  been  pretended  by  some,  (and  in  England 
especially,)  that  inventors  have  a  natural  and  ex- 
clusive right  to  their  inventions,  and  not  merely  for 
their  own  lives,  but  inheritable  to  their  heirs.  But 
while  it  is  a  moot  question  whether  the  origin  of  any 
kind  of  property  is  derived  from  nature  at  all,  it 
would  be  singular  to  admit  a  natural  and  even  an 
hereditary  right  to  inventors.  It  is  agreed  by  those 
who  have  seriously  considered  the  subject,  that  no 
individual  has,  of  natural  right,  a  separate  property 
in  an  acre  cf  land,  for  instance.  By  an  universal 
law,  indeed,  whatever,  whether  fixed  or  movable, 
belongs  to  all  men  equally  and  in  common,  is  the 
property  for  the  moment  of  him  who  occupies  it, 
but  when  he  relinquishes  the  occupation,  the  prop- 
erty goes  with  it.  Stable  ownership  is  the  gift  of 
social  law,  and  is  given  late  in  the  progress  of  society. 
It  would  be  curious  then,  if  an  idea,  the  fugitive 
fermentation  of  an  individual  brain,  could,  of  natural 
right,  be  claimed  in  exclusive  and  stable  property. 
If  nature  has  made  any  one  thing  less  susceptible 
than  all  others  of  exclusive  property,  it  is  the  action 
of  the  thinking  power  called  an  idea,  which  an  indi- 
vidual may  exclusively  possess  as  long  as  he  keeps 
it  to  himself;  but  the  moment  it  is  divulged,  it  forces 
itself  into  the  possession  of  every  one,  and  the  re- 
ceiver cannot  dispossess  himself  of  it.  Its  peculiar 
character,   too,  is  that  no  one  possesses  the  less, 


334  Jefferson's  Works 

because  every  other  possesses  the  whole  of  it.  He 
who  receives  an  idea  from  me,  receives  instruction 
himself  without  lessening  mine ;  as  he  who  lights  his 
taper  at  mine,  receives  light  without  darkening  me. 
That  ideas  should  freely  spread  from  one  to  another 
over  the  globe,  for  the  moral  and  mutual  instruction 
of  man,  and  improvement  of  his  condition,  seems 
to  have  been  peculiarly  and  benevolently  designed 
by  nature,  when  she  made  them,  like  fire,  expansible 
over  all  space,  without  lessening  their  density  in  any 
point,  and  like  the  air  in  which  we  breathe,  move, 
and  have  our  physical  being,  incapable  of  confine- 
ment or  exclusive  appropriation.  Inventions  then 
cannot,  in  nature,  be  a  subject  of  property.  Society 
may  give  an  exclusive  right  to  the  profits  arising 
from  them,  as  an  encouragement  to  men  to  pursue 
ideas  which  may  produce  utility,  but  this  may  or 
may  not  be  done,  according  to  the  will  and  conve- 
nience of  the  society,  without  claim  or  complaint 
from  anybody.  Accordingly,  it  is  a  fact,  as  far  as 
I  am  informed,  that  England  was,  until  we  copied 
her,  the  only  country  on  earth  which  ever,  by  a 
general  law,  gave  a  legal  right  to  the  exclusive  use 
of  an  idea.  In  some  other  countries  it  is  sometimes 
done,  in  a  great  case,  and  by  a  special  and  personal 
act,  but,  generally  speaking,  other  nations  have 
thought  that  these  monopolies  produce  more  embar- 
rassment than  advantage  to  society ;  and  it  may  be 
observed  that  the  nations  which  refuse  monopolies 
of  invention,  are  as  fruitful  as  England  in  new  and 
useful  devices. 


Correspondence  335 

Considering  the  exclusive  right  to  invention  as 
given  not  of  natural  right,  but  for  the  benefit  of 
society,  I  know  well  the  difficulty  of  drawing  a  line 
between  the  things  which  are  worth  to  the  public 
the  embarrassment  of  an  exclusive  patent,  and  those 
which  are  not.  As  a  member  of  the  patent  board 
for  several  years,  while  the  law  authorized  a  board 
to  grant  or  refuse  patents,  I  saw  with  what  slow 
progress  a  system  of  general  rules  could  be  matured. 
Some,  however,  were  established  by  that  board. 
One  of  these  was,  that  a  machine  of  which  we  were 
possessed,  might  be  applied  by  every  man  to  any 
use  of  which  it  is  susceptible,  and  that  this  right 
ought  not  to  be  taken  from  him  and  given  to  a 
monopolist,  because  the  first  perhaps  had  occasion 
so  to  apply  it.  Thus  a  screw  for  crushing  plaster 
might  be  employed  for  crushing  corn-cobs.  And  a 
chain-pump  for  raising  water  might  be  used  for  rais- 
ing wheat:  this  being  merely  a  change  of  application. 
Another  rule  was  that  a  change  of  material  should  not 
give  title  to  a  patent.  As  the  making  a  ploughshare 
of  cast  rather  than  of  wrought  iron ;  a  comb  of  iron 
instead  of  horn  or  of  ivory,  or  the  connecting  buckets 
by  a  band  of  leather  rather  than  of  hemp  or  iron. 
A  third  was  that  a  mere  change  of  form  should  give 
no  right  to  a  patent,  as  a  high-quartered  shoe  instead 
of  a  low  one ;  a  round  hat  instead  of  a  three-square ; 
or  a  square  bucket  instead  of  a  round  one.  But  for 
this  rule,  all  the  changes  of  fashion  in  dress  would 
have  been  under  the  tax  of  patentees.     These  were 


336  Jefferson's  Works 

among  the  rules  which  the  uniform  decisions  of  the 
board  had  already  established,  and  tinder  each  of 
them  Mr.  Evans'  patent  would  have  been  refused. 
First,  because  it  was  a  mere  change  of  application 
of  the  chain-pump,  from  raising  water  to  raise  wheat. 
Secondly,  because  the  using  a  leathern  instead  of  a 
hempen  band,  was  a  mere  change  of  material;  and 
thirdly,  square  buckets  instead  of  round,  are  only  a 
change  of  form,  and  the  ancient  forms,  too,  appear 
to  have  been  indifferently  square  or  round.  But 
there  were  still  abundance  of  cases  which  could  not 
be  brought  under  rule,  until  they  should  have  pre- 
sented themselves  under  all  their  aspects ;  and  these 
investigations  occupying  more  time  of  the  members 
of  the  board  than  they  could  spare  from  higher  duties, 
the  whole  was  turned  over  to  the  judiciary,  to  be 
matured  into  a  system,  under  which  every  one  might 
know  when  his  actions  were  safe  and  lawful.  Instead 
of  refusing  a  patent  in  the  first  instance,  as  the  board 
was  authorized  to  do,  the  patent  now  issues  of  course, 
subject  to  be  declared  void  on  such  principles  as 
should  be  established  by  the  courts  of  law.  This 
business,  however,  is  but  little  analogous  to  their 
course  of  reading,  since  we  might  in  vain  turn  over 
all  the  lubberly  volumes  of  the  law  to  find  a  single 
ray  which  would  lighten  the  path  of  the  mechanic 
or  the  mathematician.  It  is  more  within  the  infor- 
mation of  a  board  of  academical  professors,  and  a 
previous  refusal  of  patent  would  better  guard  our 
citizens  against  harassment  by  lawsuits.     But  Eng- 


Correspondence  337 

land  had  given  it  to  her  judges,  and  the  usual  pre- 
dominancy of  her  examples  carried  it  to  ours. 

It  happened  that  I  had  myself  a  mill  built  in  the 
interval  between  Mr.  Evans'  first  and  second  patents. 
I  was  living  in  Washington,  and  left  the  construction 
to  the  millwright.  I  did  not  even  know  he  had 
erected  elevators,  conveyers  and  hopper-boys,  until 
I  learnt  it  by  an  application  from  Mr.  Evans'  agent 
for  the  patent  price.  Although  I  had  no  idea  he 
had  a  right  to  it  by  law,  (for  no  judicial  decision 
had  then  been  given,)  yet  I  did  not  hesitate  to  remit 
to  Mr.  Evans  the  old  and  moderate  patent  price, 
which  was  what  he  then  asked,  from  a  wish  to  en- 
courage even  the  useful  revival  of  ancient  inventions. 
But  I  then  expressed  my  opinion  of  the  law  in  a 
letter,  either  to  Mr.  Evans  or  to  his  agent. 

I  have  thus,  Sir,  at  your  request,  given  you  the 
facts  and  ideas  which  occur  to  me  on  this  subject. 
I  have  done  it  without  reserve,  although  I  have  not 
the  pleasure  of  knowing  you  personally.  In  thus 
frankly  committing  myself  to  you,  I  trust  you  will 
feel^t  as  a  point  of  honor  and  candor,  to  make  no 
use  of  my  letter  which  might  bring  disquietude  on 
myself.  And  particularly,  I  should  be  unwilling 
to  be  brought  into  any  difference  with  Mr.  Evans, 
whom,  however,  I  believe  too  reasonable  to  take 
offence  at  an  honest  difference  of  opinion.  I  esteem 
him  much,  and  sincerely  wish  him  wealth  and  honor. 
I  deem  him  a  valuable  citizen,  of  uncommon  inge- 
nuity and  usefulness.     And  had  I  not  esteemed  still 

VOL.    XIII-22 


338  MfersanVWarks 

more  the  establishment  of  sound  principles,  I  should 
now  have  been  silent.  If  any  of  the  matter  I  have 
offered  can  promote  that  object,  I  have  no  objection 
to  its  being  so  used ;  if  it  offers  nothing  new,  it  will 
of  course  not  be  used  at  all.  I  have  gone  with 
some  minuteness  into  the  mathematical  history 
of  the  elevator,  because  it  belongs  to  a  branch  of 
science  in  which,  as  I  have  before  observed,  it  is 
not  incumbent  on  lawyers  to  be  learned;  and  it  is 
possible,  therefore,  that  some  of  the  proofs  I  have 
quoted  may  have  escaped  on  their  former  argu- 
ments. On  the  law  of  the  subject  I  should  not 
have  touched,  because  more  familiar  to  those  who 
have  already  discussed  it ;  but  I  wished  to  state  my 
view  of  it  merely  in  justification  of  myself,  my 
name  and  approbation  being  subscribed. to  the  act. 
With  these  explanations,  accept  the  assurance  of 
my  respect. 


TO    JOHN    WALDO. 
.  MONTICELLO,    AugUSt    1 6,    1813. 

Sir, — Your  favor  of  March  27th  came  during  my 
absence  on  a  journey  of  some  length.  It  covered 
your  " Rudiments  of  English  Grammar,"  for  which 
I  pray  you  to  accept  my  thanks.  This  acknowl- 
edgment of  it  has  been  delayed,  until  I  could  have 
time  to  give  the  work  such  a  perusal  as  the  avoca- 
tions to  which  I  am  subject  would  permit.  In 
the  rare    and    short    intervals    which    these   have 


Correspondence  339 

allotted  me,  I  have  gone  over  with  pleasure  a  con- 
siderable part,  although  not  yet  the  whole  of  it. 
But  I  am  entirely  unqualified  to  give  that  critical 
opinion  of  it  which  you  do  me  the  favor  to  ask. 
Mine  has  been  a  life  of  business,  of  that  kind  which 
appeals  to  a  man's  conscience,  as  well  as  his  indus- 
try, not  to  let  it  suffer,  and  the  few  moments  allowed 
me  from  labor  have  been  devoted  to  more  attractive 
studies,  that  of  grammar  having  never  been  a 
favorite  with  me.  The  scanty  foundation,  laid 
in  at  school,  has  carried  me  through  a  life  of  much 
hasty  writing,  more  indebted  for  style  to  reading 
and  memory,  than  to  rules  of  grammar.  I  have 
been  pleased  to  see  that  in  all  cases  you  appeal  to 
usage,  as  the  arbiter  of  language;  and  justly  con- 
sider that  as  giving  law  to  grammar,  and  not  gram- 
mar to  usage.  I  concur  entirely  with  you  in  oppo- 
sition to  Purists,  who  would  destroy  all  strength 
and  beauty  of  style,  by  subjecting  it  to  a  rigorous 
compliance  with  their  rules.  Fill  up  all  the  ellipses 
and  syllepses  of  Tacitus,  Sallust,  Livy,  etc.,  and 
the  elegance  and  force  of  their  sententious  brevity 
are  extinguished. 

"Auferre,  trucidare,  rapere,  falsis  nominibus, 
imperium  appellant. "  "  Deorum  injurias,  diis  curae." 
"Allieni  appetens,  sui  profusus;  ardens  in  cupidi- 
tatibus;  satis  loquentise,  sapientiae  parum."  "Anni- 
bal  peto  pacem."  "  Per  diem  Sol  non  uret  te,  neque 
Luna  per  noctem."  Wire-draw  these  expressions 
by  filling  up  the  whole  syntax  and  sense,  and  they 


340  Jefferson's  Works 

become  dull  paraphrases  on  rich  sentiments.  We 
may  say  then  truly  with  Quintilian,  "Aliud  est 
Grammatice,  aliud  Latine  loqui."  I  am  no  friend, 
therefore,  to  what  is  called  Purism,  but  a  zealous 
one  to  the  Neology  which  has  introduced  these  two 
words  without  the  authority  of  any  dictionary.  I 
consider  the  one  as  destroying  the  verve  and  beauty 
of  language,  while  the  other  improves  both,  and  adds 
to  its  copiousness.  I  have  been  not  a  little  disap- 
pointed, and  made  suspicious  of  my  own  judgment, 
on  seeing  the  Edinburgh  Reviewers,  the  ablest 
critics  of  the  age,  set  their  faces  against  the  intro- 
duction of  new  words  into  the  English  language; 
they  are  particularly  apprehensive  that  the  writers 
of  the  United  States  will  adulterate  it.  Certainly 
so  great  growing  a  population,  spread  over  such  an 
extent  of  country,  with  such  a  variety  of  climates, 
of  productions,  of  arts,  must  enlarge  their  language, 
to  make  it  answer  its  purpose  of  expressing  all 
ideas,  the  new  as  well  as  the  old.  The  new  circum- 
stances under  which  we  are  placed,  call  for  new 
words,  new  phrases,  and  for  the  transfer  of  old 
words  to  new  objects.  An  American  dialect  will 
therefore  be  formed;  so  will  a  West-Indian  and 
Asiatic,  as  a  Scotch  and  an  Irish  are  already  formed. 
But  whether  will  these  adulterate,  or  enrich  the 
English  language?  Has  the  beautiful  poetry  of 
Burns,  or  his  Scottish  dialect,  disfigured  it?  Did 
the  Athenians  consider  the  Doric,  the  Ionian,  the 
^Eolic,  and  other  dialects,  as  disfiguring  or  as  beauti- 


Correspondence  34' 

f ying  their  language  ?  Did  they  fastidiously  disavow 
Herodotus,  Pindar,  Theocritus,  Sappho,  Alcaeus, 
or  Grecian  writers?  On  the  contrary,  they  were 
sensible  that  the  variety  of  dialects,  still  infinitely 
varied  by  poetical  license,  constituted  the  riches  of 
their  language,  and  made  the  Grecian  Homer  the  first 
of  poets,  as  he  must  ever  remain,  until  a  language 
equally  ductile  and  copious  shall  again  be  spoken. 

Every  language  has  a  set  of  terminations,  which 
make  a  part  of  its  peculiar  idiom.  Every  root 
among  the  Greeks  was  permitted  to  vary  its  termi- 
nation, so  as  to  express  its  radical  idea  in  the  form 
of  any  one  of  the  parts  of  speech ;  to  wit,  as  a  noun, 
an  adjective,  a  verb,  participle,  or  adverb;  and 
each  of  these  parts  of  speech  again,  by  still  varying 
the  termination,  could  vary  the  shade  of  idea  exist- 
ing in  the  mind. 

vt*  *i*  *1*  *•!*  *J>*  ^ll*  St*  *&*  *&*  *4*  *l* 

^f%  Jf*  <|^  #X*  *i*  *T*  *P  *T*  •!*  ^  *T* 

It  was  not,  then,  the  number  of  Grecian  roots 
(for  some  other  languages  may  have  as  many) 
which  made  it  the  most  copious  of  the  ancient 
languages;  but  the  infinite  diversification  which 
each  of  these  admitted.  Let  the  same  license  be 
allowed  in  English,  the  roots  of  which,  native  and 
adopted,  are  perhaps  more  numerous  and  its  idio- 
matic terminations  more  various  than  of  the  Greek, 
and  see  what  the  language  would  become.  Its 
idiomatic  terminations  are: — 

Sub  si .  Gener-ation — ator ;  degener-acy ;  gener- 
osity— ousness— alship — alisdmo ;    king-dom — Hng ; 


342  Jefferson's  Works 

joy-ance;  enjoy-er — ment;  herb-age — alist;  sanct- 
uary— imony — itude;  royal-ism;  lamb-kin;  child- 
hood ;  bishop-ric ;  proced-ure ;  horseman-ship ; 
worthi-ness. 

A  dj.  Gener-ant — ative — ic — ical — able — ous — al ; 
joy-ful — less — some;  herb-y;  accous — escent — ulent; 
child-ish;  wheat-en. 

Verb.     Gener-ate — alize. 

Part.     Gener-ating — ated. 

Adv.     Gener-al — ly. 

I  do  not  pretend  that  this  is  a  complete  list  of  all 
the  terminations  of  the  two  languages.  It  is  as  much 
so  as  a  hasty  recollection  suggests,  and  the  omissions 
are  as  likely  to  be  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  one  as 
the  other.  If  it  be  a  full,  or  equally  fair  enumer- 
ation, the  English  are  the  double  of  the  Greek 
terminations. 

But  there  is  still  another  source  of  copiousness 
more  abundant  than  that  of  termination.  It  is 
the  composition  of  the  root,  and  of  every  member 
of  its  family,  i,  with  prepositions,  and  2,  with 
other  words.  The  prepositions  used  in  the  com- 
position of  Greek  words  are: — 

*%1*  VL*  »J>  «A*  vt*  %t*  Mg  A  <S^  v[j 

*^  *^  #^  ^*  ^*  *|*  *J*  *J*  ^%  *^ 

Now  multiply  each  termination  of  a  family  into 
every  preposition,  and  how  prolific  does  it  make 
each  root!  But  the  English  language,  beside  its 
own  prepositions,  about  twenty  in  number,  which 
it  compounds  with  English  roots,  uses  those  of  the 
Greek  for  adopted  Greek  roots,  and  of  the  Latin 


Correspondence] 


343 


for  Latin  roots.  The  English  prepositions,  with 
examples  of  their  use,  are  a,  as  in  a-long,  a-board, 
a- thirst,  a-clock;  be,  as  in  be-lie;  mis,  as  in  mis- 
hap; these  being  inseparable.  The  separable,  with 
examples,  are  above-cited,  after- thought,  gain-say, 
before-hand,  fore-thought,  behind-hand,  by-law, 
for-give,  fro-ward,  in-born,  on-set,  over-go,  out-go, 
thorough-go,  under-take,  up-lift,  with-stand.  Now 
let  us  see  what  copiousness  this  would  produce, 
were  it  allowed  to  compound  every  root  and  its 
family  with  every  preposition,  where  both  sense 
and  sound  would  be  in  its  favor.  Try  it  on  an 
English  root,  the  verb  "to  place,"  Anglo-Saxon 
plczce,1  for  instance,  and  the  Greek  and  Latin  roots, 
of  kindred  meaning,  adopted  in  English,  to  wit, 
Beaig-  and  locatio,  with  their  prepositions. 


mis-place 

after-place 

gain-place 

fore-place 

hind-place 

by-place 

for- place 

fro-place 

in-place 

on-place 

over-place 

out-place 

thorough-place 

under-place 

up-place 

with-place 


amphi-  thesis 
ana-thesis 
anti-thesis 
apo-  thesis 
dia-thesis 
ek- thesis 
en-thesis 
epi- thesis 
cata-thesis 
para-thesis 
peri-thesis 
pro- thesis 
pros-thesis 
syn- thesis 
hyper-thesis 
hypo- thesis 


a-location 

ab-location 

abs-location 

al-location 

anti-location 

circum-location 

cis-location 

col-location 

contra-location 

de-location 

di-location 

dis-location 

e-location 

ex- location 

extra-location 

il-location 


inter-location 

intro-location 

juxta-location 

ob-location 

per-location 

post-location 

pre-location 

preter-location 

pro-location 

retro-location 

re-location 

se-location 

sub-location 

super-location 

trans-location 

ultra-location 


1  Johnson  derives  "  place  "  from  the  French  "  place,"  an  open  square 
in  a  town.     But  its  northern  parentage  is  visible  in  its  syno-nime  plaiz, 
Teutonic,  and  plattse,  Belgic,   both  of  which  signify  locus,  and  Jhc. 
Anglo-Saxon  place,  platea,  vicus. 


344  Jefferson's  Works 

Some  of  these  compounds  would  be  new;  but  all 
present  distinct  meanings,  and  the  synonisms  of 
the  three  languages  offer  a  choice  of  sounds  to 
express  the  same  meaning;  add  to  this,  that  in 
some  instances,  usage  has  authorized  the  com- 
pounding an  English  root  with  a  Latin  preposition, 
as  in  de-place,  dis-place,  re-place.  This  example 
may  suffice  to  show  what  the  language  would 
become,  in  strength,  beauty,  variety,  and  every 
circumstance  which  gives  perfection  to  language, 
were  it  permitted  freely  to  draw  from  all  its  legiti- 
mate   sources. 

The  second  source  of  composition  is  of  one  family 
of  roots  with  another.  The  Greek  avails  itself  of 
this  most  abundantly,  and  beautifully.  The  Eng- 
lish once  did  it  freely,  while  in  its  Anglo-Saxon 
form,  e.  g.,  boc-cjiaepC,  book-craft,  learning,  Jiihfc, 
gCiioap-pull,  right-belief-ful,  orthodox.  But  it  has 
lost  by  desuetude  much  of  this  branch  of  composi- 
tion, which  it  is  desirable  however  to  resume. 

If  we  wish  to  be  assured  from  experiment  of  the 
effect  of  a  judicious  spirit  of  Neology,  look  at  the 
French  language.  Even  before  the  revolution,  it 
was  deemed  much  more  copious  than  the  English; 
at  a  time,  too,  when  they  had  an  Academy  which 
endeavored  to  arrest  the  progress  of  their  language, 
by  fixing  it  to  a  Dictionary,  out  of  which  no  word 
was  ever  to  be  sought,  used,  or  tolerated.  The 
institution  of  parliamentary  assemblies  in  1789, 
for  which  their  language  had  no  apposite  terms  or 


Correspondence  345 

phrases,  as  having  never  before  needed  them,  first 
obliged  them  to  adopt  the  Parliamentary  vocabu- 
lary of  England;  and  other  new  circumstances 
called  for  corresponding  new  words;  until  by  the 
number  of  these  adopted,  and  by  the  analogies  for 
adoption  which  they  have  legitimated,  I  think  we 
may  say  with  truth  that  a  Dictionnaire  Neologique 
of  these  would  be  half  as  large  as  the  dictionary  of 
the  Academy ;  and  that  at  this  time  it  is  the  lan- 
guage in  which  every  shade  of  idea,  distinctly 
perceived  by  the  mind,  may  be  more  exactly  ex- 
pressed, than  in  any  language  at  this  day  spoken 
by  man.  Yet  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that 
the  English  language  is  founded  on  a  broader  base, 
native  and  adopted,  and  capable,  with  the  like 
freedom  of  employing  its  materials,  of  becoming 
superior  to  that  in  copiousness  and  euphony.  Not 
indeed  by  holding  fast  to  Johnson's  Dictionary; 
not  by  raising  a  hue  and  cry  against  every  word 
he  has  not  licensed;  but  by  encouraging  and  wel- 
coming new  compositions  of  its  elements.  Learn 
from  Lye  and  Benson  what  the  language  would  now 
have  been  if  restrained  to  their  vocabularies.  Its 
enlargement  must  be  the  consequence,  to  a  certain 
degree,  of  its  transplantation  from  the  latitude  of 
London  into  every  climate  of  the  globe;  and  the 
greater  the  degree  the  more  precious  will  it  become 
as  the  organ  of  the  development  of  the  human  mind. 
These  are  my  visions  on  the  improvement  of  the 
English   language   by   a  free   use   of  its   faculties. 


346  reffersoarrWarJks 

To  realize  them  would  require  a  course  of  time. 
The  example  of  good  writers,  the  approbation  of 
men  of  letters,  the  judgment  of  sound  critics,  and 
of  none  more  than  of  the  Edinburgh  Reviewers, 
would  give  it  a  beginning,  and  once  begun,  its 
progress  might  be  as  rapid  as  it  has  been  in  France, 
where  we  see  what  a  period  of  only  twenty  years 
has  effected.  Under  the  auspices  of  British  science 
and  example  it  might  commence  with  hope.  But 
the  dread  of  innovation  there,  and  especially  of 
any  example  set  by  France,  has,  I  fear,  palsied 
the  spirit  of  improvement.  Here,  where  all  is  new, 
no  innovation  is  feared  which  offers  good.  But 
we  have  no  distinct  class  of  literati  in  our  country. 
Every  man  is  engaged  in  some  industrious  pursuit, 
and  science  is  but  a  secondary  occupation,  always 
subordinate  to  the  main  business  of  his  life.  Few 
therefore  of  those  who  are  qualified,  have  leisure 
to  write.  In  time  it  will  be  otherwise.  In  the 
meanwhile,  necessity  obliges  us  to  neologize.  And 
should  the  language  of  England  continue  stationary, 
we  shall  probably  enlarge  our  employment  of  it, 
until  its  new  character  may  separate  it  in  name  as 
well  as  in  power,  from  the  mother-tongue. 

Although  the  copiousness  of  a  language  may  not 
in  strictness  make  a  part  of  its  grammar,  yet  it 
cannot  be  deemed  foreign  to  a  general  course  of 
lectures  on  its  structure  and  character;  and  the 
subject  having  been  presented  to  my  mind  by  the 
occasion  of  your  letter,  I  have  indulged  myself  in 


Correspondence  347 

its    speculation,    and   hazarded   to   you   what   has 
occurred,  with  the  assurance  of  my  great  respect. 


TO    JOHN    WILSON. 
MONTICELLO,    AugUSt    1 7,    1813. 

Sir, — Your  letter  of  the  3d  has  been  duly  received. 
That  of  Mr.  Eppes  had  before  come  to  hand,  cover- 
ing your  MS.  on  the  reformation  of  the  orthography 
of  the  plural  of  nouns  ending  in  y,  and  ey,  and  on 
orthoepy.  A  change  has  been  long  desired  in  Eng- 
lish orthography,  such  as  might  render  it  an  easy 
and  true  index  of  the  pronunciation  of  words.  The 
want  of  conformity  between  the  combinations  of 
letters,  and  the  sounds  they  should  represent, 
increases  to  foreigners  the  difficulty  of  acquiring 
the  language,  occasions  great  loss  of  time  to  children 
in  learning  to  read,  and  renders  correct  spelling 
rare  but  in  those  who  read  much.  In  England  a 
variety  of  plans  and  propositions  have  been  made 
for  the  reformation  of  their  orthography.  Passing 
over  these,  two  of  our  countrymen,  Dr.  Franklin 
and  Dr.  Thornton,  have  also  engaged  in  the  enter- 
prise; the  former  proposing  an  addition  of  two  or 
three  new  characters  only,  the  latter  a  reformation 
of  the  whole  alphabet  nearly.  But  these  attempts 
in  England,  as  well  as  here,  have  been  without  effect. 
About  the  middle  of  the  last  century  an  attempt 
was  made  to  banish  the  letter  d  from  the  words 
bridge,  judge,  hedge,  knowledge,  etc.,  others  of  that 


348  Jefferson's^Works 

termination,  and  to  write  them  as  we  write  age,  cage, 
sacrilege,  privilege;  but  with  little  success.  The 
attempt  was  also  made,  which  you  mention  in  your 
second  part,  to  drop  the  letter  u  in  words  of  Latin 
derivation  ending  in  our,  and  to  write  honor,  can- 
dor, rigor,  etc.,  instead  of  honour,  candour,  rigour. 
But  the  u  having  been  picked  up  in  the  passage  of 
these  words  from  the  Latin,  through  the  French, 
to  us,  is  still  preserved  by  those  who  consider  it  as 
a  memorial  of  our  title  to  the  words.  Other  partial 
attempts  have  been  made  by  individual  writers, 
but  with  as  little  success.  Pluralizing  nouns  in  y, 
and  ey,  by  adding  s  only,  as  you  propose,  would 
certainly  simplify  the  spelling,  and  be  analogous 
to  the  general  idiom  of  the  language.  It  would  be 
a  step  gained  in  the  progress  of  general  reformation, 
if  it  could  prevail.  But  my  opinion  being  requested 
I  must  give  it  candidly,  that  judging  of  the  future 
by  the  past,  I  expect  no  better  fortune  to  this  than 
similar  preceding  propositions  have  experienced. 
It  is  very  difficult  to  persuade  the  great  body  of 
mankind  to  give  up  what  they  have  once  learned, 
and  are  now  masters  of,  for  something  to  be  learnt 
anew.  Time  alone  insensibly  wears  down  old  habits, 
and  produces  small  changes  at  long  intervals,  and 
to  this  process  we  must  all  accommodate  ourselves, 
and  be  content  to  follow  those  who  will  not  follow 
us.  Our  Anglo-Saxon  ancestors  had  twenty  ways 
of  spelling  the  word  "many."  Ten  centuries  have 
dropped  all  of  them  and  substituted  that  which  we 


Correspondence  349 

now  use.  I  now  return  your  MS.  without  being 
able,  with  the  gentlemen  whose  letters  are  cited,  to 
encourage  hope  as  to  its  effect.  I  am  bound,  how- 
ever, to  acknowledge  that  this  is  a  subject  to  which 
I  have  not  paid  much  attention;  and  that  my 
doubts  therefore  should  weigh  nothing  against 
their  more  favorable  expectations.  That  these 
may  be  fulfilled,  and  mine  prove  unfounded,  I 
sincerely  wish,  because  I  am  a  friend  to  the  refor- 
mation generally  of  whatever  can  be  made  better, 
and  because  it  could  not  fail  of  gratifying  you  to  be 
instrumental  in  this  work.  Accept  the  assurance 
of  my  respect. 


TO   JOHN    ADAMS. 
MONTICELLO,    AugUSt    2  2,     1813. 

Dear  Sir, — Since  my  letter  of  June  the  27th,  I 
am  in  your  debt  for  many ;  all  of  which  I  have  read 
with  infinite  delight.  They  open  a  wide  field  for 
reflection,  and  offer  subjects  enough  to  occupy  the 
mind  and  the  pen  indefinitely.  I  must  follow  the 
good  example  you  have  set,  and  when  I  have  not 
time  to  take  up  every  subject,  take  up  a  single  one. 
Your  approbation  of  my  outline  to  Dr.  Priestley  is  a 
great  gratification  to  me;  and  I  very  much  suspect 
that  if  thinking  men  would  have  the  courage  to 
think  for  themselves,  and  to  speak  what  they  think, 
it  would  be  found  they  do  not  differ  in  religious 
opinions  as  much  as  is  supposed.     I  remember  to 


35°  Jeffefson?s/Works 

have  heard  Dr.  Priestley  say,  that  if  all  England 
would  candidly  examine  themselves,  and  confess, 
they  would  find  that  Unitarianism  was  really 
the  religion  of  all;  and  I  observe  a  bill  is  now 
depending  in  parliament  for  the  relief  of  Anti- 
Trinitarians.  It  is  too  late  in  the  day  for  men  of 
sincerity  to  pretend  they  believe  in  the  Platonic 
mysticisms  that  three  are  one,  and  one  is  three; 
and  yet  that  the  one  is  not  three,  and  the  three  are 
not  one;  to  divide  mankind  by  a  single  letter 
into  'o/Aoyo-tavr  and  eo/«H«0"ta»'s-  But  this  constitutes 
the  craft,  the  power  and  the  profit  of  the  priests. 
Sweep  away  their  gossamer  fabrics  of  factitious 
religion,  and  they  would  catch  no  more  flies.  We 
should  all  then,  like  the  Quakers,  live  without  an 
order  of  priests,  moralize  for  ourselves,  follow  the 
oracle  of  conscience,  and  say  nothing  about  what 
no  man  can  understand,  nor  therefore  believe;  for 
I  suppose  belief  to  be  the  assent  of  the  mind  to  an 
intelligible  proposition. 

It  is  with  great  pleasure  I  can  inform  you,  that 
Priestley  finished  the  comparative  view  of  the  doc- 
trines of  the  philosophers  of  antiquity,  and  of  Jesus, 
before  his  death ;  and  that  it  was  printed  soon  after. 
And,  with  still  greater  pleasure,  that  I  can  have  a 
copy  of  his  work  forwarded  from  Philadelphia,  by 
a  correspondent  there,  and  presented  for  your 
acceptance,  by  the  same  mail  which  carries  you 
this,  or  very  soon  after.  The  branch  of  the  work 
which  the  title  announces,  is  executed  with  learn- 


Correspondence  35 x 

ing  and  candor,  as  was  everything  Priestley  wrote, 
but  perhaps  a  little  hastily;  for  he  felt  himself 
pressed  by  the  hand  of  death.  The  Abbe  Batteux 
had,  in  fact,  laid  the  foundation  of  this  part  in  his 
Causes  Premieres,  with  which  he  has  given  us  the 
originals  of  Ocellus  and  Timaeus,  who  first  com- 
mitted the  doctrines  of  Pythagoras  to  writing,  and 
Enfield,  to  whom  the  Doctor  refers,  had  done  it 
more  copiously.  But  he  has  omitted  the  important 
branch,  which,  in  your  letter  of  August  the  9th, 
you  say  you  have  never  seen  executed,  a  comparison 
of  the  morality  of  the  Old  Testament  with  that  of 
the  New.  And  yet,  no  two  things  were  ever  more 
unlike.  I  ought  not  to  have  asked  him  to  give  it. 
He  dared  not.  He  would  have  been  eaten  alive 
by  his  intolerant  brethren,  the  Cannibal  priests. 
And  yet,  this  was  really  the  most  interesting  branch 
of  the  work. 

Very  soon  after  my  letter  to  Doctor  Priestley, 
the  subject  being  still  in  my  mind,  I  had  leisure 
during  an  abstraction  from  business  for  a  day  or 
two,  while  on  the  road,  to  think  a  little  more  on  it, 
and  to  sketch  more  fully  than  I  had  done  to  him, 
a  syllabus  of  the  matter  which  I  thought  should 
enter  into  the  work.  I  wrote  it  to  Doctor  Rush, 
and  there  ended  all  my  labor  on  the  subject;  him- 
self and  Doctor  Priestley  being  the  only  two  deposi- 
tories of  my  secret.  The  fate  of  my  letter  to  Priest- 
ley, after  his  death,  was  a  warning  to  me  on  that  of 
Doctor  Rush;    and  at  my  request,  his  family  were 


352  Jefferson's  Works 

so  kind  as  to  quiet  me  by  returning  my  original 
letter  and  syllabus.  By  this,  you  will  be  sensible 
how  much  interest  I  take  in  keeping  myself  clear 
of  religious  disputes  before  the  public,  and  especially 
of  seeing  my  syllabus  disembowelled  by  the  Aruspices 
of  the  modern  Paganism.  Yet  I  enclose  it  to  you 
with  entire  confidence,  free  to  be  perused  by  your- 
self and  Mrs.  Adams,  but  by  no  one  else,  and  to  be 
returned  to  me. 

You  are  right  in  supposing,  in  one  of  yours,  that 
I  had  not  read  much  of  Priestley's  Predestination, 
his  no-soul  system,  or 'his  controversy  with  Horsley. 
But  I  have  read  his  Corruptions  of  Christianity,  and 
Early  Opinions  of  Jesus,  over  and  over  again;  and 
I  rest  on  them,  and  on  Middleton's  writings,  especially 
his  letters  from  Rome,  and  to  Waterland,  as  the  basis 
of  my  own  faith.  These  writings  have  never  been 
answered,  nor  can  be  answered  by  quoting  historical 
proofs,  as  they  have  done.  For  these  facts,  there- 
fore, I  cling  to  their  learning,  so  much  superior  to 
my  own. 

I  now  fly  off  in  a  tangent  to  another  subject. 
Marshall,  in  the  first  volume  of  his  history,  chapter 
3,  p.  180,  ascribes  the  petition  to  the  King,  of  1774, 
(1  Journ.  Cong.  67)  to  the  pen  of  Richard  Henry 
Lee.  I  think  myself  certain  it  was  not  written  by 
him,  as  well  from  what  I  recollect  to  have  heard, 
as  from  the  internal  evidence  of  style.  His  was 
loose,  vague,  frothy,  rhetorical.  He  was  a  poorer 
writer  than  his  brother  Arthur;  and  Arthur's  stand- 


Correspondence  353 

ing  may  be  seen  in  his  Monitor's  letters,  to  insure 
the  sale  of  which,  they  took  the  precaution  of  tack- 
ing to  them  a  new  edition  of  the  Farmer's  letters, 
like  Mezentius,  who  " mortua  jungebat  corpora  vivis." 
You  were  of  the  committee,  and  can  tell  me  who 
wrote  this  petition,  and  who  wrote  the  address  to 
the  inhabitants  of  the  colonies,  ib.  45.  Of  the 
papers  of  July,  1775,  I  recollect  well  that  Mr.  Dick- 
inson drew  the  petition  to  the  King,  ib.  149;  I 
think  Robert  R.  Livingston  drew  the  address  to 
the  inhabitants  of  Great  Britain,  ib.  152.  Am  I 
right  in  this?  And  who  drew  the  address  to  the 
people  of  Ireland,  ib.  180?  On  these  questions  I 
ask  of  your  memory  to  help  mine.  Ever  and 
affectionately  yours. 


TO   JOHN    W.    EPPES. 

Poplar  Forest,  September  n,  18 13. 

Dear  Sir, — I  turn  with  great  reluctance  from 
the  functions  of  a  private  citizen  to  matters  of  State. 
The  swaggering  on  deck,  as  a  passenger,  is  so  much 
more  pleasant  than  clambering  the  ropes  as  a  sea- 
man, and  my  confidence  in  the  skill  and  activity 
of  those  employed  to  work  the  vessel  is  so  entire, 
that  I  notice  nothing  en  passant,  but  how  smoothly 
she  moves.  Yet  I  avail  myself  of  the  leisure  which 
a  visit  to  this  place  procures  me,  to  revolve  again 
in  my  mind  the  subject  of  my  former  letter,  and  in 
compliance  with  the  request  of  yours  of ,  to  add 

VOL.  XIII-23 


3  54  Jefferson's  Works 

some  further  thoughts  on  it.  Though  intended  as 
only  supplementary  to  that,  I  may  fall  into  repeti- 
tions, not  having  that  with  me,  nor  paper  or  book 
of  any  sort  to  supply  the  default  of  a  memory  on 
the  wane. 

The  objects  of  finance  in  the  United  States  have 
hitherto  been  very  simple;  merely  to  provide  for 
the  support  of  the  government  on  its  peace  estab- 
lishment, and  to  pay  the  debt  contracted  in  the 
Revolutionary  war,  a  war  which  will  be  sanctioned 
by  the  approbation  of  posterity  through  all  future 
ages.  The  means  provided  for  these  objects  were 
ample,  and  resting  on  a  consumption  which  little 
affected  the  poor,  may  be  said  to  have  been  sensibly 
felt  by  none.  The  fondest  wish  of  my  heart  ever 
was  that  the  surplus  portion  of  these  taxes,  destined 
for  the  payment  of  that  debt,  should,  when  that 
object  was  accomplished,  be  continued  by  annual 
or  biennial  re-enactments,  and  applied,  in  time  of 
peace,  to  the  improvement  of  our  country  by 
canals,  roads  and  useful  institutions,  literary  or 
others;  and  in  time  of  war  to  the  maintenance  of 
the  war.  And  I  believe  that  keeping  the  civil  list 
within  proper  bounds,  the  surplus  would  have  been 
sufficient  for  any  war,  administered  with  integrity 
and  judgment.  For  authority  to  apply  the  surplus 
to  objects  of  improvement,  an  amendment  of  the 
Constitution  would  have  been  necessary.  I  have 
said  that  the  taxes  sho*dd.be  continued  by  annual 
or  biennial  re-enactments,  because  q  &m£teg±%  fe^d, 


Correspondence  355 

by  the  nation,  of  the  strings  of  the  public  purse, 
is  a  salutary  restraint  from  which  an  honest  govern- 
ment ought  not  to  wish,  nor  a  corrupt  one  to  be 
permitted  to  be  free.  No  tax  should  ever  be  yielded 
for  a  longer  term  than  that  of  the  Congress  wanting 
it,  except  when  pledged  for  the  reimbursement  of 
a  loan.  On  this  system,  the  standing  income  being 
once  liberated  from  the  Revolutionary  debt,  no 
future  loan  nor  future  tax  would  ever  become 
necessary,  and  wars  would  no  otherwise  affect  our 
pecuniary  interests  than  by  suspending  the  improve- 
ments belonging  to  a  state  of  peace.  This  happy- 
consummation  would  have  been  achieved  by  another 
eight  years'  administration,  conducted  by  Mr. 
Madison,  and  executed  in  its  financial  department 
by  Mr.  Gallatin,  could  peace  have  been  so  long 
preserved.  So  enviable  a  state  in  prospect  for  our 
country,  induced  me  to  temporize,  and  to  bear  with 
national  wrongs  which  under  no  other  prospect 
ought  ever  to  have  been  unresented  or  unresisted. 
My  hope  was,  that  by  giving  time  for  reflection, 
and  retraction  of  injury,  a  sound  calculation  of 
their  own  interests  would  induce  the  aggressing 
nations  to  redeem  their  own  character  by  a  return 
to  the  practice  of  right.  But  our  lot  happens  to 
have  been  cast  in  an  age  when  two  nations  to  whom 
circumstances  have  given  a  temporary  superiority 
over  others,  the  one  by  land,  the  other  by  sea, 
throwing  off  all  restraints  of  morality,  all  pride  of 
national    character,    forgetting    the    mutability    of 


356  Jefferson's  Works 

fortune  and  the  inevitable  doom  which  the  laws 
of  nature  pronounce  against  departure  from  justice, 
individual  or  national,  have  dared  to  treat  her 
reclamations  with  derision,  and  to  set  up  force 
instead  of  reason  as  the  umpire  of  nations.  Degrad- 
ing themselves  thus  from  the  character  of  lawful 
societies  into  lawless  bands  of  robbers  and  pirates, 
they  are  abusing  their  brief  ascendency  by  desolat- 
ing the  world  with  blood  and  rapine.  Against 
such  a  banditti,  war  had  become  less  ruinous 
than  peace,  for  then  peace  was  a  war  on  one  side 
only.  On  the  final  and  formal  declarations  of  Eng- 
land, therefore,  that  she  never  would  repeal  her 
orders  of  council  as  to  us,  until  those  of  France 
should  be  repealed  as  to  other  nations  as  well  as  us, 
and  that  no  practicable  arrangement  against  her 
impressment  of  our  seamen  could  be  proposed  or 
devised,  war  was  justly  declared,  and  ought  to 
have  been  declared.  This  change  of  condition  has 
clouded  our  prospects  of  liberation  from  debt,  and 
of  being  able  to  carry  on  a  war  without  new  loans 
or  taxes.  But  although  deferred,  these  prospects 
are  not  desperate.  We  should  keep  forever  in  view 
the  state  of  1817,  towards  which  we  were  advancing, 
and  consider  it  as  that  which  we  must  attain.  Let 
the  old  funds  continue  appropriated  to  the  civil 
list  and  Revolutionary  debt,  and  the  reversion  of  the 
surplus  to  improvement  during  peace,  and  let  us 
take  up  this  war  as  a  separate  business,  for  which, 
substantive  and  distinct  provision  is  to  be  made, 


Correspondence  357 

That  we  are  bound  to  defray  its  expenses  within 
our  own  time,  and  unauthorized  to  burden  posterity 
with  them,  I  suppose  to  have  been  proved  in  my 
former  letter.  I  will  place  the  question  neverthe- 
less in  one  additional  point  of  view.  The  former 
regarded  their  independent  right  over  the  earth; 
this  over  their  own  persons.  There  have  existed 
nations,  and  civilized  and  learned  nations,  who 
have  thought  that  a  father  had  a  right  to  sell  his 
child  as  a  slave,  in  perpetuity ;  that  he  could  alienate 
his  body  and  industry  conjointly,  and  a  fortiori  his 
industry  separately;  and  consume  its  fruits  him- 
self. A  nation  asserting  this  fratricide  right  might 
well  suppose  they  could  burden  with  public  as  well 
as  private  debt  their  "  nati  natorum,  et  qui  nascentur 
at  Mis."  But  we,  this  age,  and  in  this  country 
especially,  are  advanced  beyond  those  notions  of 
natural  law.  We  acknowledge  that  our  children 
are  born  free ;  that  that  freedom  is  the  gift  of  nature, 
and  not  of  him  who  begot  them;  that  though  under 
our  care  during  infancy,  and  therefore  of  necessity 
under  a  duly  tempered  authority,  that  care  is  con- 
fided to  us  to  be  exercised  for  the  preservation  and 
good  of  the  child  only;  and  his  labors  during  youth 
are  given  as  a  retribution  for  the  charges  of  infancy. 
As  he  was  never  the  property  of  his  father,  so  when 
adult  he  is  sui  juris,  entitled  himself  to  the  use  of 
his  own  limbs  and  the  fruits  of  his  own  exertions: 
so  far  we  are  advanced,  without  mind  enough,  it 
seems   to  take  the  whole  step.     We  believe,  or  we 


358  Jefferson's  Works 

act  as  if  we  believed,  that  although  an  individual 
father  cannot  alienate  the  labor  of  his  son,  the 
aggregate  body  of  fathers  may  alienate  the  labor 
of  all  their  sons,  of  their  posterity,  in  the  aggregate, 
and  oblige  them  to  pay  for  all  the  enterprises,  just 
or  unjust,  profitable  or  ruinous,  into  which  our 
vices,  our  passions,  or  our  personal  interests  may 
lead  us.  But  I  trust  that  this  proposition  needs 
only  to  be  looked  at  by  an  American  to  be  seen  in 
its  true  point  of  view,  and  that  we  shall  all  consider 
ourselves  unauthorized  to  saddle  posterity  with  our 
debts,  and  morally  bound  to  pay  them  ourselves; 
and  consequently  within  what  may  be  deemed  the 
period  of  a  generation,  or  the  life  of  the  majority. 
In  my  former  letter  I  supposed  this  to  be  a  little1 
over  twenty  years.  We  must  raise  then  ourselves 
the  money  for  this  war,  either  by  taxes  within  the 
year,  or  by  loans;  and  if  by  loans,  we  must  repay 
them  ourselves,  proscribing  forever  the  English 
practice  of  perpetual  funding;  the  ruinous  conse- 
quences of  which,  putting  right  out  of  the  question, 
should  be  a  sufficient  warning  to  a  considerate 
nation  to  avoid  the  example. 

The  raising  money  by  Tontine,  more  practised  on 
the  continent  of  Europe  than  in  England,  is  liable 
to  the  same  objection,  of  encroachment  on  the 
independent  rights  of  posterity ;  because  the  annui- 
ties not  expiring  gradually,  with  the  lives  on  which 
they  rest,  but  all  on  the  death  of  the  last  survivor 

1 A  lapse  of  memory,  not  having  the  letter  to  recur  to. 


Correspondence  359 

only,  they  will  of  course  over-pass  the  term  of  a 
generation,  and  the  more  probably  as  the  subjects 
on  whose  lives  the  annuities  depend,  are  generally 
chosen  of  the  ages,  constitutions  and  occupations 
most  favorable  to  long  life. 

Annuities  for  single  lives  are  also  beyond  our 
powers,  because  the  single  life  may  pass  the  term 
of  a  generation.  This  last  practice  is  objectionable 
too,  as  encouraging  celibacy,  and  the  disinherison 
of  heirs. 

Of  the  modes  which  are  within  the  limits  of  right, 
that  of  raising  within  the  year  its  whole  expenses 
by  taxation,  might  be  beyond  the  abilities  of  our 
citizens  to  bear.  It  is,  moreover,  generally  desir- 
able that  the  public  contributions  should  be  as 
uniform  as  practicable  from  year  to  year,  that  our 
habits  of  industry  and  of  expense  may  become 
adapted  to  them ;  and  that  they  maybe  duly  digested 
and  incorporated  with  our  annual  economy. 

There  remains  then  for  us  but  the  method  of 
limited  anticipation,  the  laying  taxes  for  a  term 
of  years  within  that  of  our  right,  which  may  be 
sold  for  a  present  sum  equal  to  the  expenses  of  the 
year;  in  other  words,  to  obtain  a  loan  equal  to  the 
expenses  of  the  year,  laying  a  tax  adequate  to  its 
interest,  and  to  such  a  surplus  as  will  reimburse, 
by  growing  instalments,  the  whole  principal  within 
the  term.  This  is,  in  fact,  what  has  been  called 
raising  money  on  the  sale  of  annuities  for  years. 
In  this  way  a  new  loan,  and  of  course  a  new  tax, 


36°  Jefferson's  Works 

is  requisite  every  year  during  the  continuance  of 
the  war;  and  should  that  be  so  long  as  to  produce 
an  accumulation  of  tax  beyond  our  ability,  in  time 
of  war  the  resource  would  be  an  enactment  of  the 
taxes  requisite  to  ensure  good  terms,  by  securing 
the  lender,  with  a  suspension  of  the  payment  of 
instalments  of  principal  and  perhaps  of  interest 
also,  until  the  restoration  of  peace.  This  method 
of  anticipating  our  taxes,  or  of  borrowing  on  annui- 
ties for  years,  insures  repayment  to  the  lender, 
guards  the  rights  of  posterity,  prevents  a  perpetual 
alienation  of  the  public  contributions,  and  conse- 
quent destitution  of  every  resource  even  for  the 
ordinary  support  of  government.  The  public  ex- 
penses of  England  during  the  present  reign,  have 
amounted  to  the  fee  simple  value  of  the  whole 
island.  If  its  whole  soil  could  be  sold,  farm  by 
farm,  for  its  present  market  price,  it  would  not 
defray  the  cost  of  governing  it  during  the  reign  of 
the  present  king,  as  managed  by  him.  Ought  not 
then  the  right  of  each  successive  generation  to  be 
guaranteed  against  the  dissipations  and  corruptions 
of  those  preceding,  by  a  fundamental  provision 
in  our  Constitution?  And,  if  that  has  not  been 
made,  does  it  exist  the  less;  there  being  between 
generation  and  generation,  as  between  nation  and 
nation,  no  other  law  than  that  of  nature?  And  is 
it  the  less  dishonest  to  do  what  is  wrong,  because 
not  expressly  prohibited  by  written  law?  Let  us 
hope  our  moral  principles  are  not  yet  in  that  stage 


Correspondence  361 

of  degeneracy,  and  that  in  instituting  the  system 
of  finance  to  be  hereafter  pursued,  we  shall  adopt 
the  only  safe,  the  only  lawful  and  honest  one,  of 
borrowing  on  such  short  terms  of  reimbursement 
of  interest  and  principal  as  will  fall  within  the 
accomplishment  of  our  own  lives. 

The  question  will  be  asked  and  ought  to  be  looked 
at,  what  is  to  be  the  resource  if  loans  cannot  be 
obtained?  There  is  but  one,  "Carthago  delenda 
est."  Bank  paper  must  be  suppressed,  and  the 
circulating  medium  must  be  restored  to  the  nation 
to  whom  it  belongs.  It  is  the  only  fund  on  which 
they  can  rely  for  loans ;  it  is  the  only  resource  which 
can  never  fail  them,  and  it  is  an  abundant  one  for 
every  necessary  purpose.  Treasury  bills,  bottomed 
on  taxes,  bearing  or  not  bearing  interest,  as  may 
be  found  necessary,  thrown  into  circulation  will 
take  the  place  of  so  much  gold  and  silver,  which 
last,  when  crowded,  will  find  an  efflux  into  other 
countries,  and  thus  keep  the  quantum  of  medium 
at  its  salutary  level.  Let  banks  continue  if  they 
please,  but  let  them  discount  for  cash  alone  or 
for  treasury  notes.  They  discount  for  cash  alone 
in  every  other  country  on  earth  except  Great 
Britain,  and  her  too  often  unfortunate  copyist,  the 
United  States.  If  taken  in  time  they  may  be  recti- 
fied by  degrees,  and  without  injustice,  but  if  let 
alone  till  the  alternative  forces  itself  on  us,  of  sub- 
mitting to  the  enemy  for  want  of  funds,  or  the 
suppression  of  bank  paper,  either  by  law  or  by 


362  Jefferson's  Works 

convulsion,  we  cannot  foresee  how  it  will  end.  The 
remaining  questions  are  mathematical  only.  How 
are  the  taxes  and  the  time  of  their  continuance  to 
be  proportioned  to  the  sum  borrowed,  and  the 
stipulated  interest? 

The  rate  of  interest  will  depend  on  the  state  of 
the  money  market,  and  the  duration  of  the  tax  on 
the  will  of  the  legislature.  Let  us  suppose  that 
(to  keep  the  taxes  as  low  as  possible)  they  adopt 
the  term  of  twenty  years  for  reimbursement,  which 
we  call  their  maximum;  and  let  the  interest  they 
last  gave  of  7^  per  cent,  be  that  which  they  must 
expect  to  give.  The  problem  then  will  stand  in 
this  form.  Given  the  sum  borrowed  (which  call  s,) 
a  million  of  dollars  for  example ;  the  rate  of  interest, 
.075  or  ^  (call  it  r — i)>  and  the  duration  of  the 
annuity  or  tax,  twenty  years,  (=0  what  will  be 
(a)  the  annuity  or  tax,  which  will  reimburse  principal 
and  interest  within  the  given  term?  This  problem, 
laborious  and  barely  practicable  to  common  arith- 
metic, is  readily  enough  solved,  Algebraically  and 
with  the  aid  of  Logarithms.     The  theorem  applied 

tr — 1X1 

to  the  case  is  a  =  \ i_    the    solution    of    which 

rt 

gives  a  =  $98,684.2,  nearly  $100,000,  or  one-tenth 
of  the  sum  borrowed. 

It  may  be  satisfactory  to  see  stated  in  figures  the 
yearly  progression  of  reimbursement  of  the  million 
of  dollars,  and  their  interest  at  7^  per  cent,  effected 

by  the  regular  payment  of  dollars  annually. 

It  will  be  as  follows: 


Correspondence  365 

Borrowed,  $1,000,000. 

Balance  after      1st  payment,    $975,000 


<< 

a 
tt 

tt 
tt 
tt 

tt 
tt 

a 
tt 

tt 

a 
tt 


a 


2d 

<  < 

948,125 

3d 

«< 

9*9,234 

4th 

n 

888,177 

5th 

tt 

854,790 

6th 

tt 

818,900 

7th 

n 

780,318 

8th 

tt 

738,841 

9th 

tt 

694,254 

10th 

a 

646,324 

nth 

tt 

594,800 

12th 

a 

S39,4io 

13th 

a 

479,866 

14th 

i  i 

415,850 

15  th 

tt 

347>039 

1 6th 

a 

273,068 

17th 

it 

I93.548 

1 8th 

<< 

108,064 

19  th 

<  < 

16,169 

If  we  are  curious  to  know  the  effect  of  the  same 
annual  sum  on  loans  at  lower  rates  of  interest,  the 
following  process  will  give  it : 

From  the  Logarithm  of  a,  subtract  the  Logarithm 
r — i,  and  from  the  number  of  the  remaining  Loga- 
rithm subtract  s,  then  subtract  the  Logarithm  of 
this  last  remainder  from  the  difference  between  the 
Logarithm  a  and  Logarithm  r — i  as  found  before, 
divide  the  remainder  by  Logarithm  r,  the  quotient 


364 


Jefferson's  Works 


will  be  t.     It  will  be  found  that 
reimburse  a  million, 


dollars  will 


Years.  Dollars. 

At  7$  per  cent,  interest  in    19.17,  costing  in    the   whole    1,917,000 


7 
6* 

17.82,       " 
16.67, 

1,782,000 
1,667,000 

6 

1572, 

1,572,000 

5* 

14.91, 

1,491,000 

5 

14.  2, 

1,420,000 

0 

10. 

1,000,000 

By  comparing  the  first  and  the  last  of  these  arti- 
cles, we  see  that  if  the  United  States  were  in  pos- 
session of  the  circulating  medium,  as  they  ought  to 
be,  they  could  redeem  what  they  could  borrow  from 
that,  dollar  for  dollar,  and  in  ten  annual  instalments ; 
whereas,  the  usurpation  of  that  fund  by  bank  paper, 
obliging  them  to  borrow  elsewhere  at  7^  per  cent., 
two  dollars  are  required  to  reimburse  one.  So  that 
it  is  literally  true  that  the  toleration  of  banks  of  paper 
discount,  costs  the  United  States  one-half  their  war 
taxes;  or,  in  other  words,  doubles  the  expenses  of 
every  war.  Now  think,  but  for  a  moment,  what  a 
change  of  condition  that  would  be,  which  should 
save  half  our  war  expenses,  require  but  half  the 
taxes,  and  enthral  us  in  debt  but  half  the  time. 

Two  loans  having  been  authorized,  of  sixteen  and 
seven  and  a  half  millions,  they  will  require  for  their 
due  reimbursement  two  millions  three  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  dollars  of  the  three  millions  expected 
from  the  taxes  lately  imposed.     When  the  produce 

phaJi  be  known  of  the  several  item?  of  these  taxes. 


Correspondence  365 

such  of  them  as  will  make  up  this  sum  should  be 
selected,  appropriated,  and  pledged  for  the  reim- 
bursement of  these  loans.  The  balance  of  six  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  dollars,  will  be  a  provision 
for  six  and  a  half  millions  of  the  loan  of  the  next  year ; 
and  in  all  future  loans,  I  would  consider  it  as  a  rule 
never  to  be  departed  from,  to  lay  a  tax  of  one-tenth, 
and  pledge  it  for  the  reimbursement. 

In  the  preceding  calculations  no  account  is  taken 
of  the  increasing  population  of  the  United  States, 
which  we  know  to  be  in  a  compound  ratio  of  more 
than  3  per  cent,  per  annum;  nor  of  the  increase  of 
wealth,  proved  to  be  in  a  higher  ratio  by  the  in- 
creasing productiveness  of  the  imports  on  consump- 
tion. We  shall  be  safe  therefore  in  considering  every 
tax  as  growing  at  the  rate  of  3  per  cent,  compound 
ratio  annually.  I  say  every  tax,  for  as  to  those  on 
consumption  the  fact  is  known ;  and  the  same  growth 
will  be  found  in  the  value  of  real  estate,  if  valued 
annually;  or,  which  would  be  better,  3  per  cent, 
might  be  assumed  by  the  law  as  the  average  increase, 
and  an  addition  of  one  thirty-third  of  the  tax  paid 
the  preceding  year,  be  annually  called  for.  Suppos- 
ing then  a  tax  laid  which  would  bring  in  $100,000  at 
the  time  it  is  laid,  and  that  it  increases  annually  at 
the  rate  of  3  per  cent,  compound,  its  important  effect 
may  be  seen  in  the  following  statement : 

The  1st  year  103,090,  and  reduces  the  million  to  $972,000 

ad     "  106,090,  "         H         "  938,810 

3d     "  109,273,  "         "         "  899,947 

4th   "  na.556.  "         "         "  854,896 


366 


Jefferson's"  Works 


The  5th  year   115,920,  and  reduces  the  million  to  $803,053 
6th     "       119,410,  743,915 

7th     "      122,990,  "  676,719 

8th     "      126,680,  "  "  "  600,793 


915,913 

It  yields  the    9th  year 

$130,470, 

and  reduces  it 

to 

$515,382 

10th     " 

134,39°, 

1 1 

<  i 

419,646 

nth     " 

138,420, 

«( 

<< 

312,699 

12  th     " 

142,580, 

<« 

a 

193,517 

13th     " 

146,850, 

(i 

l< 

6l,l8l 

14th     " 

151,260, 

over  pays, 

85,49! 

1,759,883 

This  estimate  supposes  a  million  borrowed  at  7^ 
per  cent. ;  but,  if  obtained  from  the  circulation  with- 
out interest,  it  would  be  reimbursed  within  eight 
years  and  eight  months,  instead  of  fourteen  years, 
or  of  twenty  years,  on  our  first  estimate. 

But  this  view  being  in  prospect  only,  should  not 
affect  the  quantum  of  tax  which  the  former  circula- 
tion pronounces  necessary.  Our  creditors  have  a 
right  to  certainty,  and  to  consider  these  political 
speculations  as  make- weights  only  to  that,  and  at 
our  risk,  not  theirs.  To  us  belongs  only  the  comfort 
of  hoping  an  earlier  liberation  than  that  calculation 
holds  out,  and  the  right  of  providing  expressly  that 
the  tax  hypothecated  shall  cease  so  soon  as  the  debt 
it  secures  shall  be  actually  reimbursed;  and  I  will 
add  that  to  us  belongs  also  the  regret  that  improvi- 
dent legislators  should  have  exposed  us  to  a  twenty 
years'  thraldom  of  debts  and  taxes,  for  the  necessary 
defence  of  our  country,  where  the  same  contributions 


Correspondence  367 

would  have  liberated  us  in  eight  or  nine  years;  or 
have  reduced  us  perhaps  to  an  abandonment  of  our 
rights,  by  their  abandonment  of  the  only  resource 
which  could  have  ensured  their  maintenance. 

I  omit  many  considerations  of  detail  because  they 
will  occur  to  yourself,  and  my  letter  is  too  long 
already.  I  can  refer  you  to  no  book  as  treating  of 
this  subject  fully  and  suitably  to  our  circumstances. 
Smith  gives  the  history  of  the  public  debt  of  England, 
and  some  views  adapted  to  that;  and  Dr.  Price,  in 
his  book  on  annuities,  has  given  a  valuable  chapter 
on  the  effects  of  a  sinking  fund.  But  our  business 
being  to  make  every  loan  tax  a  sinking  fund  for 
itself,  no  general  one  will  be  wanting;  and  if  my  con- 
fidence is  well  founded  that  our  original  import,  when 
freed  from  the  revolutionary  debt,  will  suffice  to 
embellish  and  improve  our  country  in  peace,  and 
defend  her  in  war,  the  present  may  be  the  only  occa- 
sion of  perplexing  ourselves  with  sinking  funds. 

Should  the  injunctions  under  which  I  laid  you, 
as  to  my  former  letter,  restrain  any  useful  purpose 
to  which  you  could  apply  it,  I  remove  them;  pre- 
ferring public  benefit  to  all  personal  considerations. 
My  original  disapprobation  of  banks  circulating 
paper  is  not  unknown,  nor  have  I  since  observed  any 
effects  either  on  the  morals  or  fortunes  of  our  citizens, 
which  are  any  counterbalance  for  the  public  evils 
produced ;  and  a  thorough  conviction  that,  if  this 
war  continues,  that  circulation  must  be  suppressed, 
or  the  government  shaken  to  its  foundation  by  the 


368  Jefferson's  Works 

weight  of  taxes,  and  impracticability  to  raise  funds 
on  them,  renders  duty  to  that  paramount  to  the 
love  of  ease  and  quiet. 

When  I  was  here  in  May  last,  I  left  it  without 
knowing  that  Francis  was  at  school  in  this  neigh- 
borhood. As  soon  as  I  returned,  on  the  present 
occasion,  I  sent  for  him,  but  his  tutor  informed  me 
that  he  was  gone  on  a  visit  to  you.  I  shall  hope 
permission  for  him  always  to  see  me  on  my  visits 
to  this  place,  which  are  three  or  four  times  a  year. 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  September  14,   18 13. 

Dear  Sir, — I  owe  you  a  thousand  thanks  for 
your  favor  of  August  2 2d  and  its  enclosures,  and 
for  Dr.  Priestley's  doctrines  of  Heathen  Philosophy 
compared  with  those  of  Revelation.  Your  letter 
to  Dr.  Rush  and  the  syllabus,  I  return  enclosed 
with  this  according  to  your  injunctions,  though 
with  great  reluctance.     May  I  beg  a  copy  of  both? 

They  will  do  you  no  harm ;  me  and  others  much 
good. 

I  hope  you  will  pursue  your  plan,  for  I  am  confi- 
dent you  will  produce  a  work  much  more  valuable 
than  Priestley's,  though  that  is  curious,  and  con- 
sidering the  expiring  powers  with  which  it  was  writ- 
ten, admirable. 

The  bill  in  Parliament  for  the  relief  of  Anti-Trini- 
tarians, is  a  great  event,  and  will  form  an  epoch  in 


Correspondence  369 

ecclesiastical  history.  The  motion  was  made  by 
my  friend  Smith,  of  Clapham,  a  friend  of  the  Bel- 
shams. 

I  should  be  very  happy  to  hear  that  the  bill  is 
passed. 

The  human  understanding  is  a  revelation  from 
its  Maker  which  can  never  be  disputed  or  doubted. 
There  can  be  no  scepticism,  Pyrrhonism,  or  incre- 
dulity, or  infidelity,  here.  No  prophecies,  no  mira- 
cles are  necessary  to  prove  the  celestial  communi- 
cation. 

This  revelation  has  made  it  certain  that  two  and 
one  make  three,  and  that  one  is  not  three  nor  can 
three  be  one.  We  can  never  be  so  certain  of  any 
prophecy,  or  the  fulfilment  of  any  prophecy,  or  of 
any  miracle,  or  the  design  of  any  miracle,  as  we  are 
from  the  revelation  of  nature,  i.  e.,  Nature's  God, 
that  two  and  two  are  equal  to  four.  Miracles  or 
prophecies  might  frighten  us  out  of  our  wits ;  might 
scare  us  to  death;  might  induce  us  to  lie,  to  say 
that  we  believe  that  two  and  two  make  five.  But 
we  should  not  believe  it.  We  should  know  the 
contrary. 

Had  you  and  I  been  forty  days  with  Moses  on 
Mount  Sinai,  and  been  admitted  to  behold  the 
divine  Shekinah,  and  there  told  that  one  was  three 
and  three  one,  we  might  not  have  had  courage  to 
deny  it,  but  we  could  not  have  believed  it. 

The  thunders,  and  ligntnings,  and  earthquakes, 
and  the  transcendent  splendors  and  glories  might 

VOL.    XIII-24 


3  7o  Jeff erson  VWorks 

have  overwhelmed  us  with  terror  and  amazement, 
but  we  could  not  have  believed  the  doctrine.  We 
should  be  more  likely  to  say  in  our  hearts  whatever 
we  might  say  with  our  lips, — This  is  chance.  There 
is  no  God,  no  truth.  This  is  all  delusion,  fiction, 
and  a  lie,  or  it  is  all  chance.  But  what  is  chance? 
It  is  motion,  it  is  action,  it  is  event,  it  is  phenomenon 
without  cause. 

Chance  is  no  cause  at  all,  it  is  nothing.  And 
nothing  has  produced  all  this  pomp  and  splendor. 
And  nothing  may  produce  our  eternal  damnation 
in  the  flames  of  hell-fire  and  brimstone,  for  what 
we  know,  as  well  as  this  tremendous  exhibition  of 
terror  and  falsehood. 

God  has  infinite  wisdom,  goodness  and  power. 
He  created  the  universe.  His  duration  is  eternal, 
a  parte  ante  and  a  parte  post. 

His  presence  is  as  extensive  as  space.  What  is 
space?  An  infinite  spherical  vacuum.  He  created 
this  speck  of  dirt  and  the  human  species  for  his 
glory,  and  with  the  deliberate  design  of  making 
nine-tenths  of  our  species  miserable  forever,  for 
his  glory. 

This  is  the  doctrine  of  Christian  Theologians  in 
general,  ten  to  one. 

Now,  my  friend,  can  prophecies  or  miracles  con- 
vince you  or  me,  that  infinite  benevolence,  wisdom 
and  power,  created  and  preserves  for  a  time,  innumer- 
able millions,  to  make  them  miserable  forever  for 
his  own  glory? 


Correspondence  37* 

Wretch!  What  is  his  glory?  Is  he  ambitious? 
Does  he  want  promotion?  Is  he  vain-tickled  with 
adulation?  Exulting  and  triumphing  in  his  power 
and  the  sweetness  of  his  vengeance? 

Pardon  me,  my  Maker,  for  these  awful  questions. 
My  answer  to  them  is  always  ready.  I  believe  no 
such  things.  My  adoration  of  the  Author  of  the 
Universe  is  too  profound  and  too  sincere. 

The  love  of  God  and  his  creation,  delight,  joy, 
triumph,  exultation  in  my  own  existence,  though 
but  an  atom,  a  molecule  organique  in  the  universe, 
are  my  religion.  Howl,  snarl,  bite,  ye  Calvinistic, 
ye  Athanasian  divines,  if  you  will.  Ye  will  say  I 
am  no  Christian.  I  say  ye  are  no  Christians,  and 
there  the  account  is  balanced. 

Yet  I  believe  all  the  honest  men  among  you  are 
Christians,  in  my  sense  of  the  word. 

When  I  was  at  college,  I  was  a  metaphysician,  at 
least  I  thought  myself  such.  And  such  men  as 
Locke,  Hemmenway  and  West,  thought  me  so  too; 
for  we  were  forever  disputing  though  in  great  good 
humor. 

When  I  was  sworn  as  an  attorney,  in  1758,  in 
Boston,  though  I  lived  in  Braintree,  I  was  in  a  low 
state  of  health — thought  in  great  danger  of  a  con- 
sumption; living  on  milk,  vegetable  pudding  and 
water.  Not  an  atom  of  meat,  or  a  drop  of  spirit. 
My  next  neighbor,  my  cousin,  my  friend  Dr.  Savil, 
was  my  physician.  He  was  anxious  about  me, 
and  did  not  like  to  take  the  sole  responsibility  of  my 


37 2  Jefferson's  Works 

recovery.  He  invited  me  to  a  ride.  I  mounted 
my  horse  and  rode  with  him  to  Hingham,  on  a  visit 
to  Dr.  Ezekiel  Hersey,  a  physician  of  great  fame, 
who  felt  my  pulse,  looked  in  my  eyes,  heard  Savil 
describe  my  regimen  and  course  of  medicine,  and 
then  pronounced  his  oracle:  "Persevere,  and  as 
sure  as  there  is  a  God  in  Heaven  you  will  recover." 

He  was  an  everlasting  talker,  and  ran  out  into 
history,  philosophy,  metaphysics,  etc.,  and  fre- 
quently put  questions  to  me  as  if  he  wanted  to 
sound  me,  and  see  if  there  was  anything  in  me 
besides  hectic  fever.  I  was  young,  and  then  very 
bashful,  however  saucy  I  may  have  sometimes 
been  since.  I  gave  him  very  modest  and  very 
diffident  answers.  But  when  I  got  upon  meta- 
physics, I  seemed  to  feel  a  little  bolder,  and  ventured 
into  something  like  argument  with  him.  I  drove 
him  up,  as  I  thought,  into  a  corner,  from  which  he 
could  not  escape.  "  Sir,  it  will  follow  from  what 
you  have  now  advanced,  that  the  universe,  as 
distinct  from  God,  is  both  infinite  and  eternal. " 
"Very  true,"  said  Dr.  Hersey,  "your  inference  is 
just,  the  consequence  is  inevitable,  and  I  believe 
the  universe  to  be  both  eternal  and  infinite." 

Here  I  was  brought  up!  I  was  defeated.  I  was 
not  prepared  for  this  answer.  This  was  fifty-five 
years  ago. 

When  I  was  in  England,  from  1785  to  1788,  I 
may  say  I  was  intimate  with  Dr.  Price.  I  had  much 
conversation  with  him  at  his  own  house,   at  my 


Correspondence  373 

house,  and  at  the  houses  and  tables  of  my  friends. 
In  some  of  our  most  unreserved  conversations  when 
we  have  been  alone,  he  has  repeatedly  said  to  me: 
"  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  universe  is  eternal 
and  infinite.  It  seems  to  me  that  an  eternal  and 
infinite  effect  must  necessarily  flow  from  an  eternal 
and  infinite  cause;  and  an  infinite  wisdom,  good- 
ness and  power,  that  could  have  been  induced  to 
produce  a  universe  in  time,  must  have  produced  it 
from  eternity.  It  seems  to  me  the  effect  must  flow 
from  the  cause." 

Now,  my  friend  Jefferson,  suppose  an  eternal, 
self-existent  being,  existing  from  eternity,  possessed 
of  infinite  wisdom,  goodness  and  power,  in  absolute, 
total  solitude,  six  thousand  years  ago,  conceiving 
the  benevolent  project  of  creating  a  universe!  I 
have  no  more  to  say  at  present. 

It  has  been  long,  very  long,  a  settled  opinion  in 
my  mind,  that  there  is  now,  never  will  be,  and  never 
was  but  one  being  who  can  understand  the  universe. 

And  that  it  is  not  only  vain,  but  wicked,  for 
insects  to  pretend  to  comprehend  it. 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  September  15,   1813. 

Dear  Sir, — My  last  sheet  would  not  admit  an 
observation  that  was  material  to  my  design. 

Dr.  Price  was  inclined  to  think  that  infinite  wisdom 

^nd  goocfoess  <?qu!4  wX  permit  infinite  power  \o  be, 


374  Jefferson's  Works 

inactive  from  eternity,  but  that  an  infinite  and 
eternal  universe  must  have  necessarily  flowed  from 
these  attributes. 

Plato's  system  was  "aya0or"  was  eternal,  self- 
existent,  etc.  His  ideas,  his  word,  his  reason,  his 
wisdom,  his  goodness,  or  in  one  word  his  "Logos" 
was  omnipotent,  and  produced  the  universe  from 
all  eternity.  Now!  as  far  as  you  and  I  can  under- 
stand Hersey,  Price  and  Plato,  are  they  not  of  one 
theory?  Of  one  mind?  What  is  the  difference? 
I  own  an  eternal  solitude  of  a  self-existent  being, 
infinitely  wise,  powerful  and  good,  is  to  me  alto- 
gether incomprehensible  and  incredible.  I  could 
as  soon  believe  the  Athanasian  creed. 

You  will  ask  me  what  conclusion  I  draw  from  all 
this?  I  answer,  I  drop  into  myself,  and  acknowl- 
edge myself  to  be  a  fool.  No  mind  but  one  can  see 
through  the  immeasurable  system.  It  would  be 
presumption  and  impiety  in  me  to  dogmatize  on 
such  subjects.  My  duties  in  my  little  infinitesimal 
circle  I  can  understand  and  feel.  The  duties  of  a 
son,  a  brother,  a  father,  a  neighbor,  a  citizen,  I 
can  see  and  feel,  but  I  trust  the  Ruler  with  His 
skies. 

Si  quid  novisti  rectius,  istis 

Candidus  imperti,  si  non,  his  utere,  tnecum. 

r:  This  world  is  a  mixture  of  the  sublime  and  the 
beautiful,  the  base  and  the  contemptible,  the 
whimsical  and  ridiculous,  (according  to  our  narrow 
sense  and  trifling  feelings).     It  is  an  enigma  and 


Correspondence  375 

a  riddle.  You  need  not  be  surprised,  then,  if  I 
should  descend  from  these  heights  to  the  most 
egregious  trifle.  But  first  let  me  say,  I  asked  you 
in  a  former  letter  how  far  advanced  we  were  in  the 
science  of  aristocracy  since  Theognis'  stallions, 
jacks  and  rams?  Have  not  Chancellor  Livingston 
and  Major  General  Humphreys  introduced  an  heredi- 
tary aristocracy  of  Merino  sheep?  How  shall  we 
get  rid  of  this  aristocracy?  It  is  entailed  upon  us 
forever.  And  an  aristocracy  of  land  jobbers  and 
stock  jobbers  is  equally  and  irremediably  entailed 
upon  us,  to  endless  generations. 

Now  for  the  odd,  the  whimsical,  the  frivolous. 
I  had  scarcely  sealed  my  last  letter  to  you  upon 
Theognis'  doctrine  of  well-born  stallions,  jacks 
and  rams,  when  they  brought  me  from  the  post 
office  a  packet,  without  post  mark,  without  letter, 
without  name,  date  or  place.  Nicely  sealed  was 
a  printed  copy  of  eighty  or  ninety  pages,  and  in 
large  full  octavo,  entitled:  Section  first — Aristoc- 
racy. I  gravely  composed  my  risible  muscles  and 
read  it  through.  It  is  from  beginning  to  end  an 
attack  upon  me  by  name  for  the  doctrines  of  aristoc- 
racy in  my  three  volumes  of  Defence,  etc.  The 
conclusion  of  the  whole  is  that  an  aristocracy  of 
bank  paper  is  as  bad  as  the  nobility  of  France  or 
England.  I  most  assuredly  will  not  controvert 
this  point  with  this  man.  Who  he  is  I  cannot 
conjecture.  The  honorable  John  Taylor  of  Virginia, 
of  all  men  living  or  dead,  first  occurred  to  me. 


376  Jefferson's  Works 

Is  it  Oberon?  Is  it  Queen  Mab,  that  reigns  and 
sports  with  us  little  beings?  I  thought  my  books 
as  well  as  myself  were  forgotten.  But  behold!  I 
am  to  become  a  great  man  in  my  expiring  moments. 
Theognis  and  Plato,  and  Hersey  and  Price,  and 
Jefferson  and  I,  must  go  down  to  posterity  together; 
and  I  know  not,  upon  the  whole,  where  to  wish  for 
better  company.  I  wish  to  add  Van  der  Kemp,  who 
has  been  here  to  see  me,  after  an  interruption  of 
twenty-four  years.  I  could  and  ought  to  add 
many  others,  but  the  catalogue  would  be  too  long. 
I  am,  as  ever. 

P.  S.  Why  is  Plato  associated  with  Theognis,  etc.  ? 
Because  no  man  ever  expressed  so  much  terror  of 
the  power  of  birth.  His  genius  could  invent  no 
remedy  or  precaution  against  it,  but  a  community 
of  wives ;  a  confusion  of  families ;  a  total  extinction 
of  all  relations  of  father,  son  and  brother.  Did  the 
French  Revolutionists  contrive  much  better  against 
the  influence  of  birth? 


TO    WILLIAM    CANBY. 

Monticello,  September  18,  1813. 

Sir,— I  have  duly  received  your  favor  of  August 
27  th,  am  sensible  of  the  kind  intentions  from  which 
it  flows,  and  truly  thankful  for  them.  The  more 
so  as  they  could  only  be  the  result  of  a  favorable 
estimate  of  my  public  course.     During  a  long  life, 


Correspondence  377 

as  much  devoted  to  study  as  a  faithful  transaction 
of  the  trusts  committed  to  me  would  permit,  no 
subject  has  occupied  more  of  my  consideration  than 
our  relations  with  all  the  beings  around  us,  our 
duties  to  them,  and  our  future  prospects.  After 
reading  and  hearing  everything  which  probably 
can  be  suggested  respecting  them,  I  have  formed  the 
best  judgment  I  could  as  to  the  course  they  pre- 
scribe, and  in  the  due  observance  of  that  course,  I 
have  no  recollections  which  give  me  uneasiness.  An 
eloquent  preacher  of  your  religious  society,  Richard 
Motte,  in  a  discourse  of  much  emotion  and  pathos, 
is  said  to  have  exclaimed  aloud  to  his  congregation, 
that  he  did  not  believe  there  was  a  Quaker,  Presby- 
terian, Methodist  or  Baptist  in  heaven,  having 
paused  to  give  his  hearers  time  to  stare  and  to 
wonder.  He  added,  that  in  heaven,  God  knew  no 
distinctions,  but  considered  all  good  men  as  his 
children,  and  as  brethren  of  the  same  family.  I 
believe,  with  the  Quaker  preacher,  that  he  who 
steadily  observes  those  moral  precepts  in  which 
all  religions  concur,  will  never  be  questioned  at  the 
gates  of  heaven,  as  to  the  dogmas  in  which  they 
all  differ.  That  on  entering  there,  all  these  are  left 
behind  us,  and  the  Aristides  and  Catos,  the  Penns 
and  Tillotsons,  Presbyterians  and  Baptists,  will 
find  themselves  united  in  all  principles  which  are 
in  concert  with  the  reason  of  the  supreme  mind. 
Of  all  the  systems  of  morality,  ancient  or  modern, 
which  have  come  under  my  observation,  none  appear 


378  Jefferson's  Works 

to  me  so  pure  as  that  of  Jesus.  He  who  follows  this 
steadily  need  not,  I  think,  be  uneasy,  although  he 
cannot  comprehend  the  subtleties  and  mysteries 
erected  on  his  doctrines  by  those  who,  calling  them- 
selves his  special  followers  and  favorites,  would 
make  him  come  into  the  world  to  lay  snares  for  all 
understandings  but  theirs.  These  metaphysical 
heads,  usurping  the  judgment  seat  of  God,  denounce 
as  his  enemies  all  who  cannot  perceive  the  Geomet- 
rical logic  of  Euclid  in  the  demonstrations  of  St. 
Athanasius,  that  three  are  one,  and  one  is  three; 
and  yet  that  the  one  is  not  three  nor  the  three  one. 
In  all  essential  points  you  and  I  are  of  the  same 
religion;  and  I  am  too  old  to  go  into  inquiries  and 
changes  as  to  the  unessential.  Repeating  there- 
fore, my  thankfulness  for  the  kind  concern  you 
have  been  so  good  as  to  express,  I  salute  you  with 
friendship  and  brotherly  esteem. 


TO    GENERAL    WILLIAM    DUANE. 

Monticello,  September  18,   1813. 

Dear  Sir, — Repeated  inquiries  on  the  part  of 
Senator  Tracy  what  has  become  of  his  book,  (the 
MS.  I  last  sent  you,)  oblige  me  to  ask  of  you  what 
I  shall  say  to  him.  I  congratulate  you  on  the 
brilliant  affair  of  the  Enterprise  and  Boxer.  No 
heart  is  more  rejoiced  than  mine  at  these  mortifi- 
cations of  English  pride,  and  lessons  to  Europe 
that  the  English  are  not  invincible  at  sea.     And  if 


Correspondence  379 

these  successes  do  not  lead  us  too  far  into  the  navy 
mania,  all  will  be  well.  But  when  are  to  cease  the 
severe  lessons  we  receive  by  land,  demonstrating 
our  want  of  competent  officers?  The  numbers  of 
our  countrymen  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  the 
enemy  by  the  treachery,  cowardice  or  incompetence 
of  our  high  officers,  reduce  us  to  the  humiliating 
necessity  of  acquiescing  in  the  brutal  conduct 
observed  towards  them.  When,  during  the  last 
war,  I  put  Governor  Hamilton  and  Major  Hay  into 
a  dungeon  and  in  irons  for  having  themselves  per- 
sonally done  the  same  to  the  American  prisoners 
who  had  fallen  into  their  hands,  and  was  threatened 
with  retaliation  by  Philips,  then  returned  to  New 
York,  I  declared  to  him  I  would  load  ten  of  their 
Saratoga  prisoners  (then  under  my  care  and  within 
half  a  dozen  miles  of  my  house)  with  double  irons 
for  every  American  they  should  misuse  under  pre- 
tence of  retaliation,  and  it  put  an  end  to  the  practice. 
But  the  ten  for  one  are  now  with  them.  Our  present 
hopes  of  being  able  to  do  something  by  land  seem 
to  rest  on  Chauncey.  Strange  reverse  of  expecta- 
tions that  our  land  force  should  be  under  the  wing 
of  our  little  navy.  Accept  the  assurance  of  my 
esteem  and  respect. 


TO    ISAAC    MCPHERSON. 

Monticello,  September  18,   1813. 
Sir, — I  thank  you  for  the  communication  of  Mr. 
Jonathan  Ellicot's  letter  in  yours  of  August  28th, 


380  Jefferson's  Works 

and  the  information  it  conveys.  With  respect  to 
mine  of  August  13th,  I  do  not  know  that  it  contains 
anything  but  what  any  man  of  mathematical  reading 
may  learn  from  the  same  sources;  however,  if  it  • 
can  be  used  for  the  promotion  of  right,  I  consent 
to  such  an  use  of  it.  Your  inquiry  as  to  the  date 
of  Martin's  invention  of  the  drill-plough,  with  a 
leathern  band  and  metal  buckets,  I  cannot  precisely 
answer;  but  I  received  one  from  him  in  1794,  and 
have  used  it  ever  since  for  sowing  various  seeds, 
chiefly  peas,  turnips,  and  benni.  I  have  always 
had  in  mind  to  use  it  for  wheat ;  but  sowing  only  a 
row  at  a  time,  I  had  proposed  to  him  some  years 
ago  to  change  the  construction  so  that  it  should  sow 
four  rows  at  a  time,  twelve  inches  apart,  and  I  have 
been  waiting  for  this  to  be  done  either  by  him  or 
myself;  and  have  not,  therefore,  commenced  that 
use  of  it.  I  procured  mine  at  first  through  Colonel 
John  Taylor  of  Caroline,  who  had  been  long  in  the 
use  of  it,  and  my  impression  was  that  it  was  not 
then  a  novel  thing.  Mr.  Martin  is  still  living,  I 
believe.  If  not,  Colonel  Taylor,  his  neighbor, 
probably  knows  its  date.  If  the  bringing  together 
under  the  same  roof  various  useful  things  before 
known,  which  you  mention  as  one  of  the  grounds  of 
Mr.  Evans'  claim,  entitles  him  to  an  exclusive  use 
of  all  these,  either  separately  or  combined,  every 
utensil  of  life  might  be  taken  from  us  by  a  patent. 
I  might  build  a  stable,  bring  into  it  a  cutting-knife 
to  chop  straw,  a  hand-mill  to  grind  the  grain,  a 


Correspondence  3Sl 

curry  comb  and  brush  to  clean  the  horses,  and  by 
a  patent  exclude  every  one  from  ever  more  using 
these  things  without  paying  me.  The  elevator,  the 
conveyer,  the  hopper-boy,  are  distinct  things,  uncon- 
nected but  by  juxtaposition.  If  no  patent  can  be 
claimed  for  any  one  of  these  separately,  it  cannot 
be  for  all  of  them, — several  nothings  put  together 
cannot  make  a  something; — this  would  be  going 
very  wide  of  the  object  of  the  patent  laws.  I  salute 
you  with  esteem  and  respect. 


TO    JAMES    MARTIN. 

Monticello,  September  20,   1813. 

Sir, — Your  letter  of  August  20th,  enabled  me  to 
turn  to  mine  of  February  23d,  1798,  and  your 
former  one  of  February  2  2d,  1801,  and  to  recall  to 
my  memory  the  oration  at  Jamaica,  which  was 
the  subject  of  them.  I  see  with  pleasure  a  continu- 
ance of  the  same  sound  principles  in  the  address 
to  Mr.  Quincy.  Your  quotation  from  the  former 
paper  alludes,  as  I  presume,  to  the  term  of  office 
to  our  Senate;  a  term,  like  that  of  the  judges,  too 
long  for  my  approbation.  I  am  for  responsibilities 
at  short  periods,  seeing  neither  reason  nor  safety 
in  making  public  functionaries  independent  of  the 
nation  for  life,  or  even  for  long  terms  of  years.  On 
this  principle  I  prefer  the  Presidential  term  of  four 
years,  to  that  of  seven  years,  which  I  myself  had  at 
first  suggested,  annexing  to  it,  however,  ineligibility 


382  Jefferson's  Works 

forever  after ;  and  I  wish  it  were  now  annexed  to  the 
second  quadrennial  election  of  President. 

The  conduct  of  Massachusetts,  which  is  the  sub- 
ject of  your  address  to  Mr.  Quincy,  is  serious,  as 
embarrassing  the  operations  of  the  war,  and  jeopard- 
izing its  issue;  and  still  more  so,  as  an  example  of 
contumacy  against  the  Constitution.  One  method 
of  proving  their  purpose,  would  be  to  call  a  con- 
vention of  their  State,  and  to  require  them  to 
declare  themselves  members  of  the  Union,  and 
obedient  to  its  determinations,  or  not  members, 
and  let  them  go.  Put  this  question  solemnly  to 
their  people,  and  their  answer  cannot  be  doubtful. 
One-half  of  them  are  republicans,  and  would  cling 
to  the  Union  from  principle.  Of  the  other  half, 
the  dispassionate  part  would  consider,  ist.  That 
they  do  not  raise  bread  sufficient  for  their  own 
subsistence,  and  must  look  to  Europe  for  the  defi- 
ciency, if  excluded  from  our  ports,  which  vital 
interests  would  force  us  to  do.  2d.  That  they 
are  navigating  people  without  a  stick  of  timber 
for  the  hull  of  a  ship,  nor  a  pound  of  anything  to 
export  in  it,  which  would  be  admitted  at  any 
market.  3d.  That  they  are  also  a  manufacturing 
people,  and  left  by  the  exclusive  system  of  Europe 
without  a  market  but  ours.  4th.  That  as  the 
rivals  of  England  in  manufactures,  in  commerce, 
in  navigation,  and  fisheries,  they  would  meet  her 
competition  in  every  point.  5th.  That  England 
would  feel  no  scruples  in  making  the  abandonment 


Correspondence  3%3 

and  ruin  of  such  a  rival  the  price  of  a  treaty  with 
the  producing  States ;  whose  interest  too  it  would 
be  to  nourish  a  navigation  beyond  the  Atlantic, 
rather  than  a  hostile  one  at  our  own  door.  And 
6th.  That  in  case  of  war  with  the  Union,  which 
occurrences  between  coterminous  nations  frequently 
produce,  it  would  be  a  contest  of  one  against  fifteen. 
The  remaining  portion  of  the  federal  moiety  of  the 
State  would,  I  believe,  brave  all  these  obstacles, 
because  they  are  monarchists  in  principle,  bearing 
deadly  hatred  to  their  republican  fellow-citizens, 
impatient  under  the  ascendency  of  republican 
principles,  devoted  in  their  attachment  to  England, 
and  preferring  to  be  placed  under  her  despotism, 
if  they  cannot  hold  the  helm  of  government  here. 
I  see,  in  their  separation,  no  evil  but  the  example, 
and  I  believe  that  the  effect  of  that  would  be  cor- 
rected  by  an  early  and  humiliating  return  to  the 
Union,  after  losing  much  of  the  population  of  their 
country,  insufficient  in  its  own  resources  to  feed 
her  numerous  inhabitants,  and  inferior  in  all  its 
allurements  to  the  more  inviting  soils,  climates, 
and  governments  of  the  other  States.  Whether 
a  dispassionate  discussion  before  the  public,  of  the 
advantages  and  disadvantages  of  separation  to 
both  parties,  would  be  the  best  medicine  for  this 
dialytic  fever,  or  to  consider  it  as  sacrilege  ever  to 
touch  the  question,  may  be  doubted.  I  am,  myself, 
generally  disposed  to  indulge,  and  to  follow  reason; 
and  believe  that  in  no  case  would  it  be  safer  than 


384  Jefferson's  Works 

in  the  present.  Their  refractory  course,  however, 
will  not  be  unpunished  by  the  indignation  of  their 
co-States,  their  loss  of  influence  with  them,  the 
censures  of  history,  .and  the  stain  on  the  character 
of  their  State.  With  my  thanks  for  the  paper 
enclosed,  accept  the  assurance  of  my  esteem  and 
respect. 


TO    DR.    GEORGE    LOGAN. 

Monticello,  October  3,  1813. 

Dear  Sir, — I  have  duly  received  your  favor  of 
September  18th,  and  I  perceive  in  it  the  same  spirit 
of  peace  which  I  know  you  have  ever  breathed,  and 
to  preserve  which  you  have  made  many  personal 
sacrifices.  That  your  efforts  did  much  towards 
preventing  declared  war  with  France,  I  am  satisfied. 
Of  those  with  England,  I  am  not  equally  informed. 
I  have  ever  cherished  the  same  spirit  with  all  nations, 
from  a  consciousness  that  peace,  prosperity,  liberty, 
and  morals,  have  an  intimate  connection.  During 
the  eight  years  of  my  administration,  there  was 
not  a  year  that  England  did  not  give  us  such  cause 
as  would  have  provoked  a  war  from  any  European 
government.  But  I  always  hoped  that  time  and 
friendly  remonstrances  would  bring  her  to  a  sounder 
view  of  her  own  interests,  and  convince  her  that 
these  would  be  promoted  by  a  return  to  justice  and 
friendship  towards  us.  Continued  impressments 
of  our  seamen  by  her  naval  commanders,  whose 


Correspondence  38  5 

interest  it  was  to  mistake  them  for  theirs,  her  inno- 
vations on  the  law  of  nations  to  cover  real  piracies, 
could  illy  be  borne;  and  perhaps  would  not  have 
been  borne,  had  not  contraventions  of  the  same 
law  by  France,  fewer  in  number  but  equally  illegal, 
rendered  it  difficult  to  single  the  object  of  war. 
England,  at  length,  singled  herself,  and  took  up 
the  gauntlet,  when  the  unlawful  decrees  of  France 
being  revoked  as  to  us,  she,  by  the  proclamation  of 
her  Prince  Regent,  protested  to  the  world  that  she 
would  never  revoke  hers  until  those  of  France 
should  be  removed  as  to  all  nations.  Her  minister 
too,  about  the  same  time,  in  an  official  conversation 
with  our  Charg6,  rejected  our  substitute  for  her 
practice  of  impressment;  proposed  no  other;  and 
declared  explicitly  that  no  admissible  one  for  this 
abuse  could  be  proposed.  Negotiation  being  thus 
cut  short,  no  alternative  remained  but  war,  or  the 
abandonment  of  the  persons  and  property  of  our 
citizens  on  the  ocean.  The  last  one,  I  presume, 
no  American  would  have  preferred.  War  was 
therefore  declared,  and  justly  declared;  but  accom- 
panied with  immediate  offers  of  peace  on  simply 
doing  us  justice.  These  offers  were  made  through 
Russel,  through  Admiral  Warren,  through  the 
government  of  Canada,  and  the  mediation  proposed 
by  her  best  friend  Alexander,  and  the  greatest 
enemy  of  Bonaparte,  was  accepted  without  hesita- 
tion. An  entire  confidence  in  the  abilities  and 
integrity  of  those  now  administering  the  govern- 
vol.  xm-35 


386  Jefferson's  Works 

ment,  has  kept  me  from  the  inclination,  as  well  as 
the  occasion,  of  intermeddling  in  the  public  affairs, 
even  as  a  private  citizen  may  justifiably  do.  Yet 
if  you  can  suggest  any  conditions  which  we  ought 
to  accept,  and  which  have  not  been  repeatedly 
offered  and  rejected,  I  would  not  hesitate  to  become 
the  channel  of  their  communication  to  the  adminis- 
tration. The  revocation  of  the  orders  of  council, 
and  discontinuance  of  impressment,  appear  to  me 
indispensable.  And  I  think  a  thousand  ships  taken 
unjustifiably  in  time  of  peace,  and  thousands  of  our 
citizens  impressed,  warrant  expectations  of  indem- 
nification; such  a  western  frontier,  .perhaps,  given 
to  Canada,  as  may  put  it  out  of  their  power  here- 
after to  employ  the  tomahawk  and  scalping-knife 
of  the  Indians  on  our  women  and  children;  or, 
what  would  be  nearly  equivalent,  the  exclusive 
right  to  the  lakes.  The  modification,  however, 
of  this  indemnification  must  be  effected  by  the 
events  of  the  war.  No  man  on  earth  has  stronger 
detestation  than  myself  of  the  unprincipled  tyrant 
who  is  deluging  the  continent  of  Europe  with  blood. 
No  man  was  more  gratified  by  his  disasters  of  the 
last  campaign;  nor  wished,  more  sincerely,  success 
to  the  efforts  of  the  virtuous  Alexander.  But  the 
desire  of  seeing  England  forced  to  just  terms  of 
peace  with  us,  makes  me  equally  solicitous  for  her 
entire  exclusion  from  intercourse  with  the  rest  of 
the  world,  until  by  this  peaceable  engine  of  con- 
straint, she  can  be  made  to  renounce  her  views  of 


C&mspendetrce  387 

dominion  over  the  ocean,  of  permitting  no  other 
nation  to  navigate  it  but  with  her  license,  and  on 
tribute  to  her;  and  her  aggressions  on  the  persons 
of  our  citizens,  who  may  choose  to  exercise  their 
right  of  passing  over  that  element.  Should  the 
continental  armistice  issue  in  closing  Europe  against 
her,  she  may  become  willing  to  accede  to  just  terms 
with  us;  which  I  should  certainly  be  disposed  to 
meet,  whatever  consequences  it  might  produce  on 
our  intercourse  with  the  continental  nations.  My 
principle  is  to  do  whatever  is  right,  and  leave  con- 
sequences to  Him  who  has  the  disposal  of  them.  I 
repeat,  therefore,  that  if  you  can  suggest  what  may 
lead  to  a  just  peace,  I  will  willingly  communicate 
it  to  the  proper  functionaries.  In  the  meantime, 
its  object  will  be  best  promoted  by  a  vigorous  and 
unanimous  prosecution  of  the  war. 

I  am  happy  in  this  occasion  of  renewing  the  inter- 
change of  sentiments  between  us,  which  has  for- 
merly been  a  source  of  much  satisfaction  to  me ;  and 
with  the  homage  of  my  affectionate  attachment 
and  respect  to  Mrs.  Logan,  I  pray  you  to  accept 
the  assurance  of  my  continued  friendship  and  es- 
teem for  yourself. 


TO    JOHN    ADAMS. 

Monticello    October,  13  18 13. 
Dear  Sir, — Since  mine  of  August  the  2 2d,  I  have 
received  your  favors  of  August  the  x6th,  September 


388  Jefferson's  Works 

the  2d,  14th,  15th,  and  — ,  and  Mrs.  Adams'  of 
September  the  20th.  I  now  send  you,  according 
to  your  request,  a  copy  of  the  syllabus.  To  fill  up 
this  skeleton  with  arteries,  with  veins,  with  nerves, 
muscles  and  flesh,  is  really  beyond  my  time  and 
information.  Whoever  could  undertake  it  would 
find  great  aid  in  Enfield's  judicious  abridgment 
of  Brucker's  History  of  Philosophy,  in  which  he 
has  reduced  five  or  six  quarto  volumes,  of  one 
thousand  pages  each  of  Latin  closely  printed,  to 
two  moderate  octavos  of  English  open  type. 

To  compare  the  morals  of  the  Old,  with  those  of 
the  New  Testament,  would  require  an  attentive 
study  of  the  former,  a  search  through  all  its  books 
for  its  precepts,  and  through  all  its  history  for  its 
practices,  and  the  principles  they  prove.  As  com- 
mentaries, too,  on  these,  the  philosophy  of  the 
Hebrews  must  be  inquired  into,  their  Mishna,  their 
Gemara,  Cabbala,  Jezirah,  Sohar,  Cosri,  and  their 
Talmud,  must  be  examined  and  understood,  in  order 
to  do  them  full  justice.  Brucker,  it  would  seem,  has 
gone  deeply  into  these  repositories  of  their  ethics, 
and  Enfield,  his  epitomizer,  concludes  in  these  words : 
"Ethics  were  so  little  understood  among  the  Jews, 
that  in  their  whole  compilation  called  the  Talmud, 
there  is  only  one  treatise  on  moral  subjects.  Their 
books  of  morals  chiefly  consisted  in  a  minute  enum- 
eration of  duties.  From  the  law  of  Moses  were 
deduced  six  hundred  and  thirteen  precepts,  which 
were  divided  into  two  classes,  affirmative  and  nega* 


Correspondence  389 

tive,  two  hundred  and  forty-eight  in  the  former,  and 
three  hundred  and  sixty-five  in  the  latter.  It  may 
serve  to  give  the  reader  some  idea  of  the  low  state 
of  moral  philosophy  among  the  Jews  in  the  middle 
age,  to  add  that  of  the  two  hundred  and  forty-eight 
affirmative  precepts,  only  three  were  considered  as 
obligatory  upon  women,  and  that  in  order  to  obtain 
salvation,  it  was  judged  sufficient  to  fulfil  any  one 
single  law  in  the  hour  of  death;  the  observance  of 
the  rest  being  deemed  necessary,  only  to  increase 
the  felicity  of  the  future  life.  What  a  wretched 
depravity  of  sentiment  and  manners  must  have 
prevailed,  before  such  corrupt  maxims  could  have 
obtained  credit!  It  is  impossible  to  collect  from 
these  writings  a  consistent  series  of  moral  doctrine." 
Enfield,  B.  4,  chapter  3.  It  was  the  reformation  of 
this  "  wretched  depravity"  of  morals  which  Jesus 
undertook.  In  extracting  the  pure  principles  which 
he  taught,  we  should  have  to  strip  off  the  artificial 
vestments  in  which  they  have  been  muffled  by 
priests,  who  have  travestied  them  into  various 
forms,  as  instruments  of  riches  and  power  to  them- 
selves. We  must  dismiss  the  Platonists  and  Plo- 
tinists,  the  Stagyrites,  and  Gamalielites  the  Eclectics, 
the  Gnostics  and  Scholastics,  their  essences  and 
emanations,  their  Logos  and  Demiurgos,  ^Eons  and 
Daemons,  male  and  female,  with  a  long  train  of  etc., 
etc.,  etc.,  or,  shall  I  say  at  once,  of  nonsense.  We 
must  reduce  our  volume  to  the  simple  evangelists, 
select,  even  from  them,  the  very  words  only  of  Jesus, 


390  Jefferson's  Works 

paring  off  the  amphiboligisms  into  which  they  have 
been  led,  by  forgetting  often,  or  not  understanding, 
what  had  fallen  from  him,  by  giving  their  own  mis- 
conceptions as  his  dicta,  and  expressing  unintelligibly 
for  others  what  they  had  not  understood  themselves. 
There  will  be  found  remaining  the  most  sublime  and 
benevolent  code  of  morals  which  has  ever  been 
offered  to  man.  I  have  performed  this  operation 
for  my  own  use,  by  cutting  verse  by  verse  out  of  the 
printed  book,  and  arranging  the  matter  which  is 
evidently  his,  and  which  is  as  easily  distinguishable 
as  diamonds  in  a  dunghill.  The  result  is  an  octavo 
of  forty-six  pages,  of  pure  and  unsophisticated  doc- 
trines, such  as  were  professed  and  acted  on  by  the 
unlettered  Apostles,  the  Apostolic  Fathers,  and  the 
Christians  of  the  first  century.  Their  Platonizing 
successors,  indeed,  in  after  times,  in  order  to  legiti- 
mate the  corruptions  which  they  had  incorporated 
into  the  doctrines  of  Jesus,  found  it  necessary  to  dis- 
avow the  primitive  Christians,  who  had  taken  their 
principles  from  the  mouth  of  Jesus  himself,  of  his 
Apostles,  and  the  Fathers  cotemporary  with  them. 
They  excommunicated  their  followers  as  heretics, 
branding  them  with  the  opprobrious  name  of  Ebion- 
ites  or  Beggars. 

For  a  comparison  of  the  Grecian  philosophy  with 
that  of  Jesus,  materials  might  be  largely  drawn  from 
the  same  source.  Enfield  gives  a  history  and  de- 
tailed account  of  the  opinions  and  principles  of  the 
different  sects.      These  relate  to  the  Gods,   their 


Correspondence  391 

natures,  grades,  places  and  powers;  the  demi-Gods 
and  Daemons,  and  their  agency  with  man;  the 
universe,  its  structure,  extent  and  duration;  the 
origin  of  things  from  the  elements  of  fire,  water,  air 
and  earth;  the  human  soul,  its  essence  and  deriva- 
tion; the  summum  bonum  and  finis  bonorum;  with 
a  thousand  idle  dreams  and  fancies  on  these  and 
other  subjects,  the  knowledge  of  which  is  withheld 
from  man ;  leaving  but  a  short  chapter  for  his  moral 
duties,  and  the  principal  section  of  that  given  to 
what  he  owes  himself,  to  precepts  for  rendering  him 
impassible,  and  unassailable  by  the  evils  of  life, 
and  for  preserving  his  mind  in  a  state  of  constant 
serenity. 

Such  a  canvass  is  too  broad  for  the  age  of  seventy, 
and  especially  of  one  whose  chief  occupations  have 
been  in  the  practical  business  of  life.  We  must  leave, 
therefore,  to  others,  younger  and  more  learned  than 
we  are,  to  prepare  this  euthanasia  for  Platonic 
Christianity,  and  its  restoration  to  the  primitive 
simplicity  of  its  founder.  I  think  you  give  a  just 
outline  of  the  theism  of  the  three  religions,  when 
you  say  that  the  principle  of  the  Hebrew  was  the 
fear,  of  the  Gentile  the  honor,  and  of  the  Christian 
the  love  of  God. 

An  expression  in  your  letter  of  September  the 
14th,  that  "  the  human  understanding  is  a  revelation 
from  its  maker,"  gives  the  best  solution  that  I  believe 
can  be  given  of  the  question,  "what  did  Socrates 
mean  by  his  Daemon?"     He  was  too  wise  to  believe, 

f 


392  Jefferson's  Works 

and  too  honest  to  pretend,  that  he  had  real  and 
familiar  converse  with  a  superior  and  invisible  being. 
He  probably  considered  the  suggestions  of  his  con- 
science, or  reason,  as  revelations  or  inspirations  from 
the  Supreme  mind,  bestowed,  on  important  occa- 
sions, by  a  special  superintending  Providence. 

I  acknowledge  all  the  merit  of  the  hymn  of  Cle- 
anthes  to  Jupiter,  which  you  ascribe  to  it.  It  is  as 
highly  sublime  as  a  chaste  and  correct  imagination 
can  permit  itself  to  go.  Yet  in  the  contemplation 
of  a  being  so  superlative,  the  hyperbolic  flights  of 
the  Psalmist  may  often  be  followed  with  approba- 
tion, even  with  rapture;  and  I  have  no  hesitation 
in  giving  him  the  palm  over  all  the  hymnists  of  every 
language  and  of  every  time.  Turn  to  the  148th 
psalm,  in  Brady  and  Tate's  version.  Have  such 
conceptions  been  ever  before  expressed?  Their  ver- 
sion of  the  15th  psalm  is  more  to  be  esteemed  for  its 
pithiness  than  it's  poetry.  Even  Sternhold,  the 
leaden  Sternhold,  kindles,  in  a  single  instance,  with 
the  sublimity  of  his  original,  and  expresses  the 
majesty  of  God  descending  on  the  earth,  in  terms 
not  unworthy  of  the  subject: 

"  The  Lord  descended  from  above, 
And  bowed  the  heav'ns  most  high; 
And  underneath  his  feet  he  cast 
The  darkness  of  the  sky. 
On  Cherubim  and  Seraphim 
Full  royally  he  rode; 
And  on  the  wings  of  mighty  winds 
Came  flying  all  abroad." — Psalm  xviii,  9,  10. 


Correspondence  393 

The  Latin  versions  of  this  passage  by  Buchanan 
and  by  Johnston,  are  but  mediocres.  But  the  Greek 
of  Duport  is  worthy  of  quotation, 

Qvpavov  ay  k\wcl£-  KaTejSr)'  vtto  irodcn  oeouriv 
A^Xvg-  afx<j>i  fieXaiva  XV@V  KCLL  vv^  tpefttvvr). 
'Pi/x&x  Troraro  \epocr^(n  o^evfxevog-,  uxnrtp  £<£'  nnro}' 
'iTTTaroSe  TrrepvyeorcTL  Tro\v7rAay  ktov  aV£fJLOLO. 

The  best  collection  of  these  psalms  is  that  of  the 
Octagonian  dissenters  of  Liverpool,  in  their  printed 
form  of  prayer;  but  they  are  not  always  the  best 
versions.  Indeed,  bad  is  the  best  of  the  English 
versions;  not  a  ray  of  poetical  genius  having  ever 
been  employed  on  them.  And  how  much  depends 
on  this,  may  be  seen  by  comparing  Brady  and  Tate's 
15th  psalm  with  Blacklock's  Justum  et  tenacem  pro- 
positi  virum  of  Horace,  quoted  in  Hume's  history, 
Car.  2,  ch.  65.  A  translation  of  David  in  this  style, 
or  in  that  of  Pompei's  Clean thes,  might  give  us  some 
idea  of  the  merit  of  the  original.  The  character,  too, 
of  the  poetry  of  these  hymns  is  singular  to  us ;  written 
in  monostichs,  each  divided  into  strophe  and  anti- 
strophe,  the  sentiment  of  the  first  member  responded 
with  amplification  or  antithesis  in  the  second. 

On  the  subject  of  the  postscript  of  yours  of  August 
the  1 6th  and  of  Mrs.  Adams'  letter,  I  am  silent.  I 
know  the  depth  of  the  affliction  it  has  caused,  and 
can  sympathize  with  it  the  more  sensibly,  inasmuch 
as  there  is  no  degree  of  affliction,  produced  by  the 
loss  of  those  dear  to  us,  which  experience  has  not 
taught  me  to  estimate.     I  have  ever  found  time  and 


394  Jefferson's  'Works 

silence  the  only  medicine,  and  these  but  assuage, 
they  never  can  suppress,  the  deep  drawn  sigh  which 
recollection  forever  brings  up,  until  recollection  and 
life  are  extinguished  together.  Ever  affectionately 
yours. 


TO    JOHN    ADAMS. 

Monticello,  October  28,  1813. 

Dear  Sir, — According  to  the  reservation  between 
us,  of  taking  up  one  of  the  subjects  of  our  correspond- 
ence at  a  time,  I  turn  to  your  letters  of  August  the 
1 6th  and  September  the  2d. 

The  passage  you  quote  from  Theognis,  I  think  has 
an  ethical  rather  than  a  political  object.  The  whole 
piece  is  a  moral  exhortation,  Trapaiveair,  and  this 
passage  particularly  seems  to  be  a  reproof  to  man, 
who,  while  with  his  domestic  animals  he  is  curious 
to  improve  the  race,  by  employing  always  the  finest 
male,  pays  no  attention  to  the  improvement  of  his 
own  race,  but  intermarries  with  the  vicious,  the  ugly, 
or  the  old,  for  considerations  of  wealth  or  ambition. 
It  is  in  conformity  with  the  principle  adopted 
afterwards  by  the  Pythagoreans,  and  expressed  by 
Ocellus    in    another    form;   irc/u  &  rfc  '**  +&*  oAAi/Acdv 

av6p(OTT(i)v    yevecretog-    etc., — ~ov%    rjSovrjg'    cvcko.    ij    /u&r*      WrllCIl, 

as  literally  as  intelligibility  will  admit,  may  be  thus 
translated:  "concerning  the  interprocreation  of 
men,  how,  and  of  whom  it  shall  be,  in  a  perfect  man- 
ner, and  according  to  the  laws  of  modesty  and  sane- 


Correspondence  39  5 

tity,  conjointly,  this  is  what  I  think  right.  First  to 
lay  it  down  that  we  do  not  commix  for  the  sake  of 
pleasure,  but  of  the  procreation  of  children.  For  the 
powers,  the  organs  and  desires  for  coition  have  not 
been  given  by  God  to  man  for  the  sake  of  pleasure, 
but  for  the  procreation  of  the  race.  For  as  it 
were  incongruous,  for  a  mortal  born  to  partake 
of  divine  life,  the  immortality  of  the  race  being 
taken  away,  God  fulfilled  the  purpose  by  making 
the  generations  uninterrupted  and  contiguous.  This, 
therefore,  we  are  especially  to  lay  down  as  a  prin- 
ciple, that  coition  is  not  for  the  sake  of  pleasure." 
But  nature,  not  trusting  to  this  moral  and  abstract 
motive,  seems  to  have  provided  more  securely  for 
the  perpetuation  of  the  species,  by  making  it  the 
effect  of  the  oestrum  implanted  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  both  sexes.  And  not  only  has  the  com- 
merce of  love  been  indulged  on  this  unhallowed 
impulse,  but  made  subservient  also  to  wealth  and 
ambition  by  marriage,  without  regard  to  the  beauty, 
the  healthiness,  the  understanding,  or  virtue  of  the 
subject  from  which  we  are  to  breed.  The  selecting 
the  best  male  for  a  harem  of  well-chosen  females  also, 
which  Theognis  seems  to  recommend  from  the  exam- 
ple of  our  sheep  and  asses,  would  doubtless  improve 
the  human,  as  it  does  the  brute  animal,  and  produce 
a  race  of  veritable  apivroi.  For  experience  proves, 
that  the  moral  and  physical  qualities  of  man,  whether 
good  or  evil,  are  transmissible  in  a  certain  degree 
from  father  to  son.     But  I  suspect  that  the  equal 


396  Jefferson's  Works 

rights  of  men  will  rise  up  against  this  privileged 
Solomon  and  his  harem,  and  oblige  us  to  continue 
acquiescence  under  the  "  Afiavpoycng-  yeveog-  ao-rwv"  which 
Theognis  complains  of,  and  to  content  ourselves 
with  the  accidental  aristoi  produced  by  the  for- 
tuitous concourse  of  breeders.  For  I  agree  with 
you  that  there  is  a  natural  aristocracy  among  men. 
The  grounds  of  this  are  virtue  and  talents.  For- 
merly, bodily  powers  gave  place  among  the  aristoi. 
But  since  the  invention  of  gunpowder  has  armed  the 
weak  as  well  as  the  strong  with  missile  death,  bodily 
strength,  like  beauty,  good  humor,  politeness  and 
other  accomplishments,  has  become  but  an  auxiliary 
ground  of  distinction.  There  is  also  an  artificial 
aristocracy,  founded  on  wealth  and  birth,  without 
either  virtue  or  talents;  for  with  these  it  would 
belong  to  the  first  class.  The  natural  aristocracy 
I  consider  as  the  most  precious  gift  of  nature,  for 
the  instruction,  the  trusts,  and  government  of 
society.  And  indeed,  it  would  have  been  inconsist- 
ent in  creation  to  have  formed  man  for  the  social 
state,  and  not  to  have  provided  virtue  and  wisdom 
enough  to  manage  the  concerns  of  the  society.  May 
we  not  even  say,  that  that  form  of  government  is  the 
best,  which  provides  the  most  effectually  for  a  pure 
selection  of  these  natural  aristoi  into  the  offices  of 
government?  The  artificial  aristocracy  is  a  mis- 
chievous ingredient  in  government,  and  provision 
should  be  made  to  prevent  its  ascendency.  On  the 
question,  what  is  the  best  provision,  you  and  I- differ; 


Correspondence  397 

but  we  differ  as  rational  friends,  using  the  free  exer- 
cise of  our  own  reason,  and  mutually  indulging  its 
errors.  You  think  it  best  to  put  the  pseudo-aristoi 
into  a  separate  chamber  of  legislation,  where  they 
may  be  hindered  from  doing  mischief  by  their  co- 
ordinate branches,  and  where,  also,  they  may  be  a 
protection  to  wealth  against  the  agrarian  and  plun- 
dering enterprises  of  the  majority  of  the  people.  I 
think  that  to  give  them  power  in  order  to  prevent 
them  from  doing  mischief,  is  arming  them  for  it,  and 
increasing  instead  of  remedying  the  evil.  For  if  the 
co-ordinate  branches  can  arrest  their  action,  so  may 
they  that  of  the  co-ordinates.  Mischief  may  be  done 
negativeiy  as  well  as  positively.  Of  this,  a  cabal  in 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States  has  furnished  many 
proofs.  Nor  do  I  believe  them  necessary  to  protect 
the  wealthy ;  because  enough  of  these  will  find  their 
way  into  every  branch  of  the  legislation,  to  protect 
themselves.  From  fifteen  to  twenty  legislatures  of 
our  own,  in  action  for  thirty  years  past,  have  proved 
that  no  fears  of  an  equalization  of  property  are  to 
be  apprehended  from  them.  I  think  the  best  remedy 
is  exactly  that  provided  by  all  our  constitutions,  to 
leave  to  the  citizens  the  free  election  and  separation 
of  the  aristoi  from  the  pseudo-aristoi,  of  the  wheat 
from  the  chaff.  In  general  they  will" elect  the  really 
good  and  wise.  In  some  instances,  wealth  may  cor- 
rupt, and  birth  blind  them;  but  not  in  sufficient 
degree  to  endanger  the  society. 

It  is  probable  that  our  difference  of  opinion  may, 


39^  Jefferson.VWorJks 

in  some  measure,  be  produced  by  a  difference  of 
character  in  those  among  whom  we  live.  From 
what  I  have  seen  of  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut 
myself,  and  still  more  from  what  I  have  heard,  and 
the  character  given  of  the  former  by  yourself,  (vol- 
ume i,  page  in,)  who  know  them  so  much  better, 
there  seems  to  be  in  those  two  States  a  traditionary 
reverence  for  certain  families,  which  has  rendered 
the  offices  of  the  government  nearly  hereditary  in 
those  families.  I  presume  that  from  an  early  period 
of  your  history,  members  of  those  families  happen- 
ing to  possess  virtue  and  talents,  have  honestly  exer- 
cised them  for  the  good  of  the  people,  and  by  their 
services  have  endeared  their  names  to  them.  In 
coupling  Connecticut  with  you,  I  mean  it  politically 
only,  not  morally.  For  having  made  the  Bible  the 
common  law  of  their  land,  they  seem  to  have  mod- 
eled their  morality  on  the  story  of  Jacob  and  Laban. 
But  although  this  hereditary  succession  to  office  with 
you,  may,  in  some  degree,  be  founded  in  real  family 
merit,  yet  in  a  much  higher  degree,  it  has  proceeded 
from  your  strict  alliance  of  Church  and  State.  These 
families  are  canonized  in  the  eyes  of  the  people  on 
common  principles,  "  you  tickle  me,  and  I  will  tickle 
you."  In  Virginia  we  have  nothing  of  this.  Our 
clergy,  before  "the  revolution,  having  been  secured 
against  rivalship  by  fixed  salaries,  did  not  give  them- 
selves the  trouble  of  acquiring  influence  over  the 
people.  Of  wealth,  there  were  great  accumulations 
in  particular  families,  handed  down  from  generation 


Correspondence  399 

to  genera  tion,  under  the  English  law  of  entails.  But 
the  only  object  of  ambition  for  the  wealthy  was  a 
seat  in  the  King's  Council.  All  their  court  then  was 
paid  to  the  crown  and  its  creatures ;  and  they  Philip- 
ized  in  all  collisions  between  the  King  and  the  people. 
Hence  they  were  unpopular;  and  that  unpopularity 
continues  attached  to  their  names.  A  Randolph, 
a  Carter,  or  a  Burwell  must  have  great  personal 
superiority  over  a  common  competitor  to  be  elected 
by  the  people  even  at  this  day.  At  the  first  session 
of  our  legislature  after  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, we  passed  a  law  abolishing  entails.  And  this 
was  followed  by  one  abolishing  the  privilege  of  primo- 
geniture, and  dividing  the  lands  of  intestates  equally 
among  all  their  children,  or  other  representatives. 
These  laws,  drawn  by  myself,  laid  the  axe  to  the  foot 
of  pseudo-aristocracy.  And  had  another  which  I 
prepared  been  adopted  by  the  legislature,  our  work 
would  have  been  complete.  It  was  a  bill  for  the 
more  general  diffusion  of  learning.  This  proposed 
to  divide  every  county  into  wards  of  five  or  six  miles 
square,  like  your  townships;  to  establish  in  each 
ward  a  free  school  for  reading,  writing  and  common 
arithmetic;  to  provide  for  the  annual  selection  of 
the  best  subjects  from  these  schools,  who  might 
receive,  at  the  public  expense,  a  higher  degree  of 
education  at  a  district  school;  and  from  these  dis- 
trict schools  to  select  a  certain  number  of  the  most 
promising  subjects,  to  be  completed  at  an  university, 
where    all   the   useful   sciences   should   be   taught. 


400  Jefferson's  Works 

Worth  and  genius  would  thus  have  been  sought  out 
from  every  condition  of  life,  and  completely  pre- 
pared by  education  for  defeating  the  competition 
of  wealth  and  birth  for  public  trusts.  My  proposi- 
tion had,  for  a  further  object,  to  impart  to  these 
wards  those  portions  of  self-government  for  which 
they  are  best  qualified,  by  confiding  to  them  the  care 
of  their  poor,  their  roads,  police,  elections,  the  nomi- 
nation of  jurors,  administration  of  justice  in  small 
cases,  elementary  exercises  of  militia:  in  short,  to 
have  made  them  little  republics,  with  a  warden  at 
the  head  of  each,  for  all  those  concerns  which,  being 
under  their  eye,  they  would  better  manage  than  the 
larger  republics  of  the  county  or  State.  A  general 
call  of  ward  meetings  by  their  wardens  on  the  same 
day  through  the  State,  would  at  any  time  produce  the 
genuine  sense  of  the  people  on  any  required  point, 
and  would  enable  the  State  to  act  in  mass,  as  your 
people  have  so  often  done,  and  with  so  much  effect 
by  their  town  meetings.  The  law  for  religious  free- 
dom, which  made  a  part  of  this  system,  having  put 
down  the  aristocracy  of  the  clergy,  and  restored  to 
the  citizen  the  freedom  of  the  mind,  and  those  of 
entails  and  descents  nurturing  an  equality  of  con- 
dition among  them,  this  on  education  would  have 
raised  the  mass  of  the  people  to  the  high  ground  of 
moral  respectability  necessary  to  their  own  safety, 
and  to  orderly  government;  and  would  have  com- 
pleted the  great  object  of  qualifying  them  to  select 
the  veritable  aristoi,  for  the  trusts  of  government, 


Correspondence  4°* 

to  the  exclusion  of  the  pseudalists;  and  the  same 
Theognis  who  has  furnished  the  epigraphs  of  your 

tWO   letters,    aSSUreS    US     that   u  Ou8e//,iav  ttg),    Kvpv',   ayafloi 

7toA.ii/  wXco-av  avoper."  Although  this  law  has  not  yet 
been  acted  on  but  in  a  small  and  inefficient  degree, 
it  is  still  considered  as  before  the  legislature,  with 
other  bills  of  the  revised  code,  not  yet  taken  up, 
and  I  have  great  hope  that  some  patriotic  spirit  will, 
at  a  favorable  moment,  call  it  up,  and  make  it  the 
keystone  of  the  arch  of  our  government. 

With  respect  to  aristocracy,  we  should  further  con- 
sider, that  before  the  establishment  of  the  American 
States,  nothing  was  known  to  history  but  the  man 
of  the  old  world,  crowded  within  limits  either  small 
or  overcharged,  and  steeped  in  the  vices  which  that 
situation  generates.  A  government  adapted  to  such 
men  would  be  one  thing;  but  a  very  different  one, 
that  for  the  man  of  these  States.  Here  every  one 
may  have  land  to  labor  for  himself,  if  he  chooses; 
or,  preferring  the  exercise  of  any  other  industry, 
may  exact  for  it  such  compensation  as  not  only  to 
afford  a  comfortable  subsistence,  but  wherewith  to 
provide  for  a  cessation  from  labor  in  old  age.  Every 
one,  by  his  property,  or  by  his  satisfactory  situation, 
is  interested  in  the  support  of  law  and  order.  And 
such  men  may  safely  and  advantageously  reserve 
to  themselves  a  wholesome  control  over  their  public 
affairs,  and  a  degree  of  freedom,  which,  in  the  hands 
of  the  canaille  of  the  cities  of  Europe,  would  be  in- 
stantly perverted  to  the  demolition  and  destruction 

VOL.    XIII-26 


402  Jefferson's  Works 

of  everything  public  and  private.  The  history  of 
the  last  twenty-five  years  of  France,  and  of  the  last 
forty  years  in  America,  nay  of  its  last  two  hundred 
years,  proves  the  truth  of  both  parts  of  this  observa- 
tion. 

But  even  in  Europe  a  change  has  sensibly  taken 
place  in  the  mind  of  man.  Science  had  liberated  the 
ideas  of  those  who  read  and  reflect,  and  the  American 
example  had  kindled  feelings  of  right  in  the  people. 
An  insurrection  has  consequently  begun,  of  science, 
talents,  and  courage,  against  rank  and  birth,  which 
have  fallen  into  contempt.  It  has  failed  in  its  first 
effort,  because  the  mobs  of  the  cities,  the  instrument 
used  for  its  accomplishment,  debased  by  ignorance, 
poverty,  and  vice,  could  not  be  restrained  to  rational 
action.  But  the  world  will  recover  from  the  panic 
of  this  first  catastrophe.  Science  is  progressive,  and 
talents  and  enterprise  on  the  alert.  Resort  may  be 
had  to  the  people  of  the  country,  a  more  governable 
power  from  their  principles  and  subordination;  and 
rank,  and  birth,  and  tinsel-aristocracy  will  finally 
shrink  into  insignificance,  even  there.  This,  how- 
ever, we  have  no  right  to  meddle  with.  It  suffices 
for  us,  if  the  moral  and  physical  condition  of  our  own 
citizens  qualifies  them  to  select  the  able  and  good 
for  the  direction  of  their  government,  with  a  recur- 
rence of  elections  at  such  short  periods  as  will  enable 
them  to  displace  an  unfaithful  servant,  before  the 
mischief  he  meditates  may  be  irremediable. 

I  have  thus  stated  my  opinion  on  a  point  on  which 


Correspondence  403 

we  differ,  not  with  a  view  to  controversy,  for  we  are 
both  too  old  to  change  opinions  which  are  the  result 
of  a  long  life  of  inquiry  and  reflection;  but  on  the 
suggestions  of  a  former  letter  of  yours,  that  we  ought 
not  to  die  before  we  have  explained  ourselves  to  each 
other.  We  acted  in  perfect  harmony,  through  a  long 
and  perilous  contest  for  our  liberty  and  independence. 
A  constitution  has  been  acquired,  which,  though 
neither  of  us  thinks  perfect,  yet  both  consider  as  com- 
petent to  render  our  fellow  citizens  the  happiest  and 
the  securest  on  whom  the  sun  has  ever  shone.  If 
we  do  not  think  exactly  alike  as  to  its  imperfections, 
it  matters  little  to  our  country,  which,  after  devoting 
to  it  long  lives  of  disinterested  labor,  we  have  deliv- 
ered over  to  our  successors  in  life,  who  will  be  able 
to  take  care  of  it  and  of  themselves. 

Of  the  pamphlet  on  aristocracy  which  has  been  sent 
to  you,  or  who  may  be  its  author,  I  have  heard  noth- 
ing but  through  your  letter.  If  the  person  you  sus- 
pect, it  may  be  known  from  the  quaint,  mystical,  and 
hyperbolical  ideas,  involved  in  affected,  new-fangled 
and  pedantic  terms  which  stamp  his  writings.  What- 
ever it  be,  I  hope  your  quiet  is  not  to  be  affected  at 
this  day  by  the  rudeness  or  intemperance  of  scrib- 
blers; but  that  you  may  continue  in  tranquillity  to 
live  and  to  rejoice  in  the  prosperity  of  our  country, 
until  it  shall  be  your  own  wish  to  take  your  seat 
among  the  aristoi  who  have  gone  before  you.  Ever 
and  affectionately  yours. 


404  Jefferson's  Works 

TO    JOHN    W.    EPPES. 

Monticello,  November  6,  1813. 

Dear  Sir,— I  had  not  expected  to  have  troubled 
you  again  on  the  subject  of  finance;  but  since  the 
date  of  my  last,  I  have  received  from  Mr.  Law  a  letter 
covering  a  memorial  on  that  subject,  which,  from  its 
tenor,  I  conjecture  must  have  been  before  Congress 
at  their  two  last  sessions.  This  paper  contains  two 
propositions;  the  one  for  issuing  treasury  notes, 
bearing  interest,  and  to  be  circulated  as  money;  the 
other  for  the  establishment  of  a  national  bank.  The 
first  was  considered  in  my  former  letter;  and  the 
second  shall  be  the  subject  of  the  present. 

The  scheme  is  for  Congress  to  establish  a  national 
bank,  suppose  of  thirty  millions  capital,  of  which 
they  shall  contribute  ten  millions  in  new  six  per 
cent,  stock,  the  States  ten  millions,  and  individuals 
ten  millions,  one-half  of  the  two  last  contributions 
to  be  of  similar  stock,  for  which  the  parties  are  to 
give  cash  to  Congress;  the  whole,  however,  to  be 
under  the  exclusive  management  of  the  individual 
subscribers,  who  are  to  name  all  the  directors; 
neither  Congress  nor  the  States  having  any  power 
of  interference  in  its  administration.  Discounts 
are  to  be  at  five  per  cent.,  but  the  profits  are  expected 
to  be  seven  per  cent.  Congress  then  will  be  paying 
six  per  cent,  on  twenty  millions,  and  receiving  seven 
per  cent,  on  ten  millions,  being  its  third  of  the  insti- 
tution; so  that  on  the  ten  millions  cash  which  they 


Correspondence  405 

receive  from  the  States  and  individuals,  they  will, 
in  fact,  have  to  pay  but  five  per  cent,  interest.  This 
is  the  bait.  The  charter  is  proposed  to  be  for  forty 
or  fifty  years,  and  if  any  future  augmentations 
should  take  place,  the  individual  proprietors  are 
to  have  the  privilege  of  being  the  sole  subscribers 
for  that.  Congress  are  further  allowed  to  issue  to 
the  amount  of  three  millions  of  notes,  bearing  inter- 
est, which  they  are  to  receive  back  in  payment  for 
lands  at  a  premium  of  five  or  ten  per  cent.,  or  as 
subscriptions  for  canals,  roads,  and  bridges,  in 
which  undertakings  they  are,  of  course,  to  be  en- 
gaged. This  is  a  summary  of  the  case  as  I  under- 
stand it ;  but  it  is  very  possible  I  may  not  understand 
it  in  all  its  parts,  these  schemes  being  always  made 
unintelligible  for  the  gulls  who  are  to  enter  into 
them.  The  advantages  and  disadvantages  shall 
be  noted  promiscuously  as  they  occur;  leaving  out 
the  speculation  of  canals,  etc.,  which,  being  an 
episode  only  in  the  scheme,  may  be  omitted,  to 
disentangle  it  as  much  as  we  can. 

1.  Congress  are  to  receive  five  millions  from  the 
States  (if  they  will  enter  into  this  partnership, 
which  few  probably  will),  and  five  millions  from 
the  individual  subscribers,  in  exchange  for  ten  mil- 
lions of  six  per  cent,  stock,  one  per  cent,  of  which, 
however,  they  will  make  on  their  ten  millions  of 
stock  remaining  in  bank,  and  so  reduce  it,  in  effect, 
to  a  loan  of  ten  millions  at  five  per  cent,  interest. 
This  is  good;  but 


406  Jefferson's  Works 

2.  They  authorize  this  bank  to  throw  into  circu^ 
lation  ninety  millions  of  dollars,  (three  times  the 
capital,)  which  increases  our  circulating  medium 
fifty  per  cent.,  depreciates  proportionably  the  pres- 
ent value  of  a  dollar,  and  raises  the  price  of  all 
future  purchases  in  the  same  proportion. 

3.  This  loan  of  ten  millions  at  five  per  cent.,  is  to 
be  once  for  all,  only.  Neither  the  terms  of  the 
scheme,  nor  their  own  prudence  could  ever  permit 
them  to  add  to  the  circulation  in  the  same,  or  any 
other  way,  for  the  supplies  of  the  succeeding  years 
of  the  war.  These  succeeding  years  then  are  to 
be  left  unprovided  for,  and  the  means  of  doing  it 
in  a  great  measure  precluded. 

4.  The  individual  subscribers,  on  paying  their 
own  five  millions  of  cash  to  Congress,  become  the 
depositories  of  ten  millions  of  stock  belonging  to 
Congress,  five  millions  belonging  to  the  States,  and 
five  millions  to  themselves,  say  twenty  millions,  with 
which,  as  no  one  has  a  right  ever  to  see  their  books, 
or  to  ask  a  question,  they  may  choose  their  time  for 
running  away,  after  adding  to  their  booty  the  pro- 
ceeds of  as  much  of  their  own  notes  as  they  shall 
be  able  to  throw  into  circulation. 

5.  The  subscribers  may  be  one,  two,  or  three,  or 
more  individuals,  (many  single  individuals  being 
able  to  pay  in  the  five  millions,)  whereupon  this 
bank  oligarchy  or  monarchy  enters  the  field  with 
ninety  millions  of  dollars,  to  direct  and  control  the 
politics  of  the  nation;  and  of  the  influence  of  these 


Correspondence  407 

institutions  on  our  politics  and  into  what  scale  it 
will  be  thrown,  we  have  had  abundant  experience. 
Indeed,  England  herself  may  be  the  real,  while  her 
friend  and  trustee  here  shall  be  the  nominal  and 
sole  subscriber. 

6.  This  state  of  things  is  to  be  fastened  on  us, 
without  the  power  of  relief,  for  forty  or  fifty  years. 
That  is  to  say,  the  eight  millions  of  people  now 
existing,  for  the  sake  of  receiving  one  dollar  and 
twenty-five  cents  apiece,  at  five  per  cent,  interest, 
are  to  subject  the  fifty  millions  of  people  who  are 
to  succeed  them  within  that  term,  to  the  payment 
of  forty-five  millions  of  dollars, principal  and  interest, 
which  will  be  payable  in  the  course  of  the  fifty  years. 

7.  But  the  great  and  national  advantage  is  to  be 
the  relief  of  the  present  scarcity  of  money,  which 
is  produced  and  proved  by, 

1.  The  additional  industry  created  to  supply  a 
variety  of  articles  for  the  troops,  ammunition,  etc. 

2.  By  the  cash  sent  to  the  frontiers,  and  the 
vacuum  occasioned  in  the  trading  towns  by  that. 

3.  By  the  late  loans. 

4.  By  the  necessity  of  recurring  to  shavers  with 
good  paper,  which  the  existing  banks  are  not  able 
to  take  up;   and 

5.  By  the  numerous  applications  of  bank  charters, 
showing  that  an  increase  of  circulating  medium  is 
wanting. 

Let  us  examine  these  causes  and  proofs  of  the 
want  of  an  increase  of  medium,  one  by  one. 


408  Jefferson's  Works 

i.  The  additional  industry  created  to  supply  a 
variety  of  articles  for  troops,  ammunition,  etc. 
Now,  I  had  always  supposed  that  war  produced  a 
diminution  of  industry,  by  the  number  of  hands 
it  withdraws  from  industrious  pursuits  for  employ- 
ment in  arms,  etc.,  which  are  totally  unproductive. 
And  if  it  calls  for  new  industry  in  the  articles  of 
ammunition  and  other  military  supplies,  the  hands 
are  borrowed  from  other  branches  on  which  the 
demand  is  slackened  by  the  war;  so  that  it  is  but 
a  shifting  of  these  hands  from  one  pursuit  to  another. 

2.  The  cash  sent  to  the  frontiers  occasions  a 
vacuum  in  the  trading  towns,  which  requires  a 
new  supply.  Let  us  examine  what  are  the  calls 
for  money  to  the  frontiers.  Not  for  clothing,  tents, 
ammunition,  arms,  which  are  all  bought  in  the 
trading  towns.  Not  for  provisions;  for  although 
these  are  bought  partly  in  the  immediate  country, 
bank  bills  are  more  acceptable  there  than  even  in 
the  trading  towns.  The  pay  of  the  army  calls  for 
some  cash,  but  not  a  great  deal,  as  bank  notes  are 
as  acceptable  with  the  military  men,  perhaps  more 
so;  and  what  cash  is  sent  must  find  its  way  back 
again  in  exchange  for  the  wants  of  the  upper  from 
the  lower  country.  For  we  are  not  to  suppose  that 
cash  stays  accumulating  there  forever. 

3.  This  scarcity  has  been  occasioned  by  the  late 
loans.  But  does  the  government  borrow  money 
to  keep  it  in  their  coffers?  Is  it  not  instantly 
restored  to  circulation  by  payment  for  its  necessary 


Correspondence  409 

supplies?  And  are  we  to  restore  a  vacuum  of 
twenty  millions  of  dollars  by  an  emission  of  ninety 
millions  ? 

4.  The  want  of  medium  is  proved  by  the  recur- 
rence of  individuals  with  good  paper  to  brokers  at 
exorbitant  interest;    and 

5.  By  the  numerous  applications  to  the  State 
governments  for  additional  banks ;  New  York  want- 
ing eighteen  millions,  Pennsylvania  ten  millions, 
etc.  But  say  more  correctly,  the  speculators  and 
spendthrifts  of  New  York  and  Pennsylvania,  but 
never  consider  them  as  being  the  States  of  New 
York  and  Pennsylvania.  These  two  items  shall 
be  considered  together. 

It  is  a  litigated  question,  whether  the  circulation 
of  paper,  rather  than  of  specie,  is  a  good  or  an  evil. 
In  the  opinion  of  England  and  of  English  writers 
it  is  a  good;  in  that  of  all  other  nations  it  is  an  evil; 
and  excepting  England  and  her  copyist,  the  United 
States,  there  is  not  a  nation  existing,  I  believe, 
which  tolerates  a  paper  circulation.  The  experi- 
ment is  going  on,  however,  desperately  in  England, 
pretty  boldly  with  us,  and  at  the  end  of  the  chapter, 
we  shall  see  which  opinion  experience  approves: 
for  I  believe  it  to  be  one  of  those  cases  where  mercan- 
tile clamor  will  bear  down  reason,  until  it  is  cor- 
rected by  ruin.  In  the  meantime,  however,  let  us 
reason  on  this  new  call  for  a  national  bank. 

After  the  solemn  decision  of  Congress  against  the 
renewal  of  the  charter  of  the  bank  of  the  United 


4io  Jefferson's  Works 

States,  and  the  grounds  of  that  decision,  (the  want 
of  constitutional  power,)  I  had  imagined  that  ques- 
tion at  rest,  and  that  no  more  applications  would 
be  made  to  them  for  the  incorporation  of  banks. 
The  opposition  on  that  ground  to  its  first  estab- 
lishment, the  small  majority  by  which  it  was  over- 
borne, and  the  means  practised  for  obtaining  it, 
cannot  be  already  forgotten.  The  law  having 
passed,  however,  by  a  majority,  its  opponents, 
true  to  the  sacred  principle  of  submission  to  a 
majority,  suffered  the  law  to  flow  through  its  term 
without  obstruction.  During  this,  the  nation  had 
time  to  consider  the  constitutional  question,  and 
when  the  renewal  was  proposed,  they  condemned 
it,  not  by  their  representatives  in  Congress  only, 
but  by  express  instructions  from  different  organs 
of  their  will.  Here  then  we  might  stop,  and  con- 
sider the  memorial  as  answered.  But,  setting 
authority  apart,  we  will  examine  whether  the  legis- 
lature ought  to  comply  with  it,  even  if  they  had 
the  power. 

Proceeding  to  reason  on  this  subject,  some  prin- 
ciples must  be  premised  as  forming  its  basis.  The 
adequate  price  of  a  thing  depends  on  the  capital 
and  labor  necessary  to  produce  it.  [In  the  term 
capital,  I  mean  to  include  science,  because  capital 
as  well  as  labor  has  been  employed  to  acquire  it. 
Two  things  requiring  the  same  capital  and  labor, 
should  be  of  the  same  price.  If  a  gallon  of  wine  re- 
quires for  its  production  the  same  capital  and  labor 


Correspondence  4 1 1 

with  a  bushel  of  wheat,  they  should  be  expressed 
by  the  same  price,  derived  from  the  application  of  a 
common  measure  to  them.  The  comparative  prices 
of  things  being  thus  to  be  estimated  and  expressed 
by  a  common  measure,  we  may  proceed  to  observe, 
that  were  a  country  so  insulated  as  to  have  no 
commercial  intercourse  with  any  other,  to  confine 
the  interchange  of  all  its  wants  and  supplies  within 
itself,  the  amount  of  circulating  medium,  as  a  com- 
mon measure  for  adjusting  these  exchanges,  would 
be  quite  immaterial.  If  their  circulation,  for  instance, 
were  of  a  million  of  dollars,  and  the  annual  produce 
of  their  industry  equivalent  to  ten  millions  of  bushels 
of  wheat,  the  price  of  a  bushel  of  wheat  might  be 
one  dollar.  If,  then,  by  a  progressive  coinage,  their 
medium  should  be  doubled,  the  price  of  a  bushel  of 
wheat  might  become  progressively  two  dollars,  and 
without  inconvenience.  Whatever  be  the  propor- 
tion of  the  circulating  medium  to  the  value  of  the 
annual  produce  of  industry,  it  may  be  considered 
as  the  representative  of  that  industry.  In  the  first 
case,  a  bushel  of  wheat  will  be  represented  by  one 
dollar;  in  the  second,  by  two  dollars.  This  is  well 
explained  by  Hume,  and  seems  admitted  by  Adam 
Smith,  B.  2,  c.  2,  436,  441,  490.  But  where  a  nation 
is  in  a  full  course  of  interchange  of  wants  and  sup- 
plies with  all  others,  the  proportion  of  its  medium 
to  its  produce  is  no  longer  indifferent.  lb.  441. 
To  trade  on  equal  terms,  the  common  measure  of 
values  should  be  as  nearly  as  possible  on  a  par  with 


412  Jefferson's  Works 

that  of  its  corresponding  nations,  whose  medium 
is  in  a  sound  state ;  that  is  to  say,  not  in  an  accidental 
state  of  excess  or  deficiency.  Now,  one  of  the  great 
advantages  of  specie  as  a  medium  is,  that  being  of 
universal  value,  it  will  keep  itself  at  a  general  level, 
flowing  out  from  where  it  is  too  high  into  parts 
where  it  is  lower.  Whereas,  if  the  medium  be  of 
local  value  only,  as  paper  money,  if  too  little, 
indeed,  gold  and  silver  will  flow  in  to  supply  the 
deficiency;  but  if  too  much,  it  accumulates,  banishes 
the  gold  and  silver  not  locked  up  in  vaults  and 
hoards,  and  depreciates  itself;  that  is  to  say,  its 
proportion  to  the  annual  produce  of  industry  being 
raised,  more  of  it  is  required  to  represent  any  par- 
ticular article  of  produce  than  in  the  other  countries. 
This  is  agreed  by  Smith,  (B.  2,  c.  2,  437,)  the  principal 
advocate  for  a  paper  circulation;  but  advocating  it 
on  the  sole  condition  that  it  be  strictly  regulated. 
He  admits,  nevertheless,  that  ''the  commerce  and 
industry  of  a  country  cannot  be  so  secure  when  sus- 
pended on  the  Daedalian  wings  of  paper  money, 
as  on  the  solid  ground  of  gold  and  silver;  and  that 
in  time  of  war,  the  insecurity  is  greatly  increased, 
and  great  confusion  possible  where  the  circulation 
is  for  the  greater  part  in  paper."  B,  2,  c.  2,  484. 
But  in  a  country  where  loans  are  uncertain,  and  a 
specie  circulation  the  only  sure  resource  for  them, 
the  preference  of  that  circulation  assumes  a  far 
different  degree  of  importance,  as  is  explained  in 
my  former  letters. 


Correspondence  4^3 

The  only  advantage  which  Smith  proposes  by 
substituting  paper  in  the  room  of  gold  and  silver 
money,  B.  2,  c.  2,  434,  is  "to  replace  an  expensive 
instrument  with  one  much  less  costly,  and  some- 
times equally  convenient;"  that  is  to  say,  page  437, 
"to  allow  the  gold  and  silver  to  be  sent  abroad  and 
converted  into  foreign  goods,"  and  to  substitute 
paper  as  being  a  cheaper  measure.  But  this  makes 
no  addition  to  the  stock  or  capital  of  the  nation. 
The  coin  sent  out  was  worth  as  much,  while  in 
the  country,  as  the  goods  imported  and  taking  its 
place.  It  is  only,  then,  a  change  of  form  in  a  part 
of  the  national  capital,  from  that  of  gold  and  silver 
to  other  goods.  He  admits,  too,  that  while  a  part 
of  the  goods  received  in  exchange  for  the  coin  ex- 
ported may  be  materials,  tools  and  provisions  for 
the  employment  of  an  additional  industry,  a  part, 
also,  may  be  taken  back  in  foreign  wines,  silks, 
etc.,  to  be  consumed  by  idle  people  who  produce 
nothing;  and  so  far  the  substitution  promotes 
prodigality,  increases  expense  and  corruption,  with- 
out increasing  production.  So  far  also,  then,  it 
lessens  the  capital  of  the  nation.  What  may  be 
the  amount  which  the  conversion  of  the  part 
exchanged  for  productive  goods  may  add  to  the 
former  productive  mass,  it  is  not  easy  to  ascertain, 
because,  as  he  says,  page  441,  "it  is  impossible  to 
determine  what  is  the  proportion  which  the  circu- 
lating money  of  any  country  bears  to  the  whole 
value  of  the  annual  produce,    It  has  been  computed 


4U  Jefferson's  Works 

by  different  authors,  from  a  fifth1  to  a  thirtieth  of 
that  value."  In  the  United  States  it  must  be  less 
than  in  any  other  part  of  the  commercial  world; 
because  the  great  mass  of  their  inhabitants  being 
in  responsible  circumstances,  the  great  mass  of 
their  exchanges  in  the  country  is  effected  on  credit, 
in  their  merchants'  ledger,  who  supplies  all  their 
wants  through  the  year,  and  at  the  end  of  it  receives 
the  produce  of  their  farms,  or  other  articles  of  their 
industry.  It  is  a  fact,  that  a  farmer  with  a  revenue 
of  ten  thousand  dollars  a  year,  may  obtain  all  his 
supplies  from  his  merchant,  and  liquidate  them  at 
the  end  of  the  year,  by  the  sale  of  his  produce  to 
him,  without  the  intervention  of  a  single  dollar  of 
cash.  This,  then,  is  merely  barter,  and  in  this  way 
of  barter  a  great  portion  of  the  annual  produce  of 
the  United  States  is  exchanged  without  the  inter- 
mediation of  cash.  We  might  safely,  then,  state  our 
medium  at  the  minimum  of  one-thirtieth.  But  what 
is  one-thirtieth  of  the  value  of  the  annual  produce  of 
the  industry  of  the  United  States?  Or  what  is  the 
whole  value  of  the  annual  produce  of  the  United 
States?  An  able  writer  and  competent  judge  of 
the  subject,  in  1799,  on  as  good  grounds  as  probably 
could  be  taken,  estimated  it,  on  the  then  popula- 
tion of  four  and  a  half  millions  of  inhabitants,  to 

1  The  real  cash  or  money  necessary  to  carry  on  the  circulation  and 
barter  of  a  State,  is  nearly  one-third  part  of  all  the  annual  rents  of 
the  proprietors  of  the  said  State;  that  is,  one-ninth  of  the  whole 
produce  of  the  land.  Sir  William  Petty  supposes  one- tenth  part  of 
the  value  of  the  whole  produce  sufficient.     Postlethwait,  voce,  Cash. 


Correspondence  4*5 

be  thirty-seven  and  a  half  millions  sterling,  or  one 
hundred  and  sixty-eight  and  three-fourths  millions 
of  dollars.  See  Cooper's  Political  Arithmetic,  page 
47.  According  to  the  same  estimate  for  our  present 
population,  it  will  be  three  hundred  millions  of 
dollars,  one-thirtieth  of  which,  Smith's  minimum, 
would  be  ten  millions,  and  one-fifth,  his  maximum, 
would  be  sixty  millions  for  the  quantum  of  circu- 
lation. But  suppose  that  instead  of  our  needing 
the  least  circulating  medium  of  any  nation,  from 
the  circumstance  before  mentioned,  we  should 
place  ourselves  in  the  middle  term  of  the  calculation, 
to  wit:  at  thirty-five  millions.  One-fifth  of  this, 
at  the  least,  Smith  thinks  should  be  retained  in 
specie,  which  would  leave  twenty-eight  millions 
of  specie  to  be  exported  in  exchange  for  other  com- 
modities; and  if  fifteen  millions  of  that  should  be 
returned  in  productive  goods,  and  not  in  articles 
of  prodigality,  that  would  be  the  amount  of  capital 
which  this  operation  would  add  to  the  existing 
mass.  But  to  what  mass?  Not  that  of  the  three 
hundred  millions,  which  is  only  its  gross  annual 
produce,  but  to  that  capital  of  which  the  three  hun- 
dred millions  are  but  the  annual  produce.  But 
this  being  gross,  we  may  infer  from  it  the  value  of 
the  capital  by  considering  that  the  rent  of  lands  is 
generally  fixed  at  one-third  of  the  gross  produce, 
and  is  deemed  its  net  profit,  and  twenty  times  that 
its  fee  simple  value.  The  profits  on  landed  capital 
may,   with   accuracy  enough  for  our  purpose,   be 


4*6  Jefferson's  Works 

supposed  on  a  par  with  those  of  other  capital.  This 
would  give  us  then  for  the  United  States,  a  capital 
of  two  thousand  millions,  all  in  active  employment, 
and  exclusive  of  unimproved  lands  lying  in  a  great 
degree  dormant.  Of  this,  fifteen  millions  would 
be  the  hundred  and  thirty-third  part.  And  it  is 
for  this  petty  addition  to  the  capital  of  the  nation, 
this  minimum  of  one  dollar,  added  to  one  hundred 
and  thirty-three  and  a  third  or  three-fourths  per 
cent.,  that  we  are  to  give  up  our  gold  and  silver 
medium,  its  intrinsic  solidity,  its  universal  value, 
and  its  saving  powers  in  time  of  war,  and  to  substi- 
tute for  it  paper,  with  all  its  train  of  evils,  moral, 
political  and  physical,  which  I  will  not  pretend  to 
enumerate. 

There  is  another  authority  to  which  we  may 
appeal  for  the  proper  quantity  of  circulating  medium 
for  the  United  States.  The  old  Congress,  when 
we  were  estimated  at  about  two  millions  of  people, 
on  a  long  and  able  discussion,  June  2 2d,  1775, 
decided  the  sufficient  quantity  to  be  two  millions 
of  dollars,  whcih  sum  they  emitted.1  Accord- 
ing to  this,  it  should  be  eight  millions,  now  that 
we  are  eight  millions  of  people.  This  differs  little 
from  Smith's  minimum  of  ten  millions,  and  strength- 
ens our  respect  for  that  estimate. 

There  is,  indeed,  a  convenience  in  paper;  its  easy 

1  Within  five  months  after  this,  they  were  compelled  by  the  necessities 
of  the  war,  to  abandon  the  idea  of  emitting  only  an  adequate  circula- 
tion, and  to  make  those  necessities  the  sole  measure  of  their  emis- 
H90fi 


Correspondence  4  *  7 

transmission  from  one  place  to  another.  But  this 
may  be  mainly  supplied  by  bills  of  exchange,  so  as 
to  prevent  any  great  displacement  of  actual  coin. 
Two  places  trading  together  balance  their  dealings, 
for  the  most  part,  by  their  mutual  supplies,  and 
the  debtor  individuals  of  either  may,  instead  of 
cash,  remit  the  bills  of  those  who  are  creditors  in 
the  same  dealings;  or  may  obtain  them  through 
some  third  place  with  which  both  have  dealings. 
The  cases  would  be  rare  where  such  bills  could  not 
be  obtained,  either  directly  or  circuitously,  and  too 
unimportant  to  the  nation  to  overweigh  the  train 
of  evils  flowing  from  paper  circulation. 

From  eight  to  thirty-five  millions  then  being  our 
proper  circulation,  and  two  hundred  millions  the 
actual  one,  the  memorial  proposes  to  issue  ninety 
millions  more,  because,  it  says,  a  great  scarcity  of 
money  is  proved  by  the  numerous  applications  for 
banks;  to  wit,  New  York  for  eighteen  millions, 
Pennsylvania  ten  millions,  etc.  The  answer  to 
this  shall  be  quoted  from  Adam  Smith,  B.  2,  c.  2, 
page  462;  where  speaking  of  the  complaints  of  the 
trader  against  the  Scotch  bankers,  who  had  already 
gone  too  far  in  their  issues  of  paper,  he  says,  "  those 
traders  and  other  undertakers  having  got  so  much 
assistance  from  banks,  wished  to  get  still  more. 
The  banks,  they  seem  to  have  thought,  could  extend 
their  credits  to  whatever  sum  might  be  wanted, 
without  incurring  any  other  expense  besides  that 
of  a  few  reams  of  paper.     They  complained  of  the 

VOL.    XIII — 27 


4i 8  Jefferson's  Works 

contracted  views  and  dastardly  spirit  of  the  directors 
of  those  banks,  which  did  not,  they  said,  extend 
their  credits  in  proportion  to  the  extension  of  the 
trade  of  the  country;  meaning,  no  doubt,  by  the 
extension  of  that  trade,  the  extension  of  their  own 
projects  beyond  what  they  could  carry  on,  either 
with  their  own  capital,  or  with  what  they  had  credit 
to  borrow  of  private  people  in  the  usual  way  of 
bond  or  mortgage.  The  banks,  they  seem  to  have 
thought,  were  in  honor  bound  to  supply  the  defi- 
ciency, and  to  provide  them  with  all  the  capital 
which  they  wanted  to  trade  with."  And  again, 
page  470:  "when  bankers  discovered  that  certain 
projectors  were  trading,  not  with  any  capital  of 
their  own,  but  with  that  which  they  advanced  them, 
they  endeavored  to  withdraw  gradually,  making 
every  day  greater  and  greater  difficulties  about 
discounting.  These  difficulties  alarmed  and  enraged 
in  the  highest  degree  those  projectors.  Their  own 
distress,  of  which  this  prudent  and  necessary  reserve 
of  the  banks  was  no  doubt  the  immediate  occasion, 
they  called  the  distress  of  the  country;  and  this 
distress  of  the  country,  they  said,  was  altogether 
owing  to  the  ignorance,  pusillanimity,  and  bad  con- 
duct of  the  banks,  which  did  not  give  a  sufficiently 
liberal  aid  to  the  spirited  undertakings  of  those  who 
exerted  themselves  in  order  to  beautify,  improve 
and  enrich  the  country.  It  was  the  duty  of  the 
banks,  they  seemed  to  think,  to  lend  for  as  long  a 
time,  and  to  as  great  an  extent,  as  they  might  wish 


Correspondence  419 

to  borrow."  It  is,  probably,  the  good  paper  of 
these  projectors  which  the  memorial  says,  the  bank 
being  unable  to  discount,  goes  into  the  hands  of 
brokers,  who  (knowing  the  risk  of  this  good  paper) 
discount  it  at  a  much  higher  rate  than  legal  interest, 
to  the  great  distress  of  the  enterprising  adventurers, 
who  had  rather  try  trade  on  borrowed  capital,  than 
go  to  the  plough  or  other  laborious  calling.  Smith 
again  says,  page  478,  "  that  the  industry  of  Scot- 
land languished  for  want  of  money  to  employ  it, 
was  the  opinion  of  the  famous  Mr.  Law.  By  estab- 
lishing a  bank  of  a  particular  kind,  which,  he  seems 
to  have  imagined  might  issue  paper  to  the  amount 
of  the  whole  value  of  all  the  lands  in  the  country, 
he  proposed  to  remedy  this  want  of  money.  It 
was  afterwards  adopted,  with  some  variations,  by 
the  Duke  of  Orleans,  at  that  time  Regent  of  France. 
The  idea  of  the  possibility  of  multiplying  paper  to 
almost  any  extent,  was  the  real  foundation  of  what 
is  called  the  Mississippi  scheme,  the  most  extrava- 
gant project  both  of  banking  and  stock  jobbing, 
that  perhaps  the  world  ever  saw.  The  principles 
upon  which  it  was  founded  are  explained  by  Mr. 
Law  himself,  in  a  discourse  concerning  money  and 
trade,  which  he  published  in  Scotland  when  he 
first  proposed  his  project.  The  splendid  but  vision- 
ary ideas  which  are  set  forth  in  that  and  some  other 
works  upon  the  same  principles,  still  continue  to 
make  an  impression  upon  many  people,  and  have 
perhaps,    in   part,    contributed   to   that   excess    of 


420  Jefferson's  Works 

banking  which  has  of  late  been  complained  of  both 
in  Scotland  and  in  other  places."  The  Mississippi 
scheme,  it  is  well  known,  ended- in  France  in  the 
bankruptcy  of  the  public  treasury,  the  crush  of 
thousands  and  thousands  of  private  fortunes,  and 
scenes  of  desolation  and  distress  equal  to  those  of 
an  invading  army,  burning  and  laying  waste  all 
before  it. 

At  the  time  we  were  funding  our  national  debt, 
we  heard  much  about  "  a  public  debt  being  a  public 
blessing;"  that  the  stock  representing  it  was  a 
creation  of  active  capital  for  the  aliment  of  com- 
merce, manufactures  and  agriculture.  This  paradox 
was  well  adapted  to  the  minds  of  believers  in  dreams, 
and  the  gulls  of  that  size  entered  bona  fide  into  it. 
But  the  art  and  mystery  of  banks  is  a  wonderful 
improvement  on  that.  It  is  established  on  the 
principle  that  " private  debts  are  a  public  blessing." 
That  the  evidences  of  those  private  debts,  called 
bank  notes,  become  active  capital,  and  aliment  the 
whole  commerce,  manufactures,  and  agriculture  of 
the  United  States.  Here  are  a  set  of  people,  for 
instance,  who  have  bestowed  on  us  the  great  blessing 
of  running  in  our  debt  about  two  hundred  millions 
of  dollars,  without  our  knowing  who  they  are,  where 
they  are,  or  what  property  they  have  to  pay  this  debt 
when  called  on;  nay,  who  have  made  us  so  sensible 
of  the  blessings  of  letting  them  run  in  our  debt,  that 
we  have  exempted  them  by  law  from  the  repayment 
of  these  debts  beyond  a  given  proportion,  (generally 


Correspondence  42 1 

estimated  at  one-third).  And  to  fill  up  the  measure 
of  blessing,  instead  of  paying,  they  receive  an  in- 
terest on  what  they  owe  from  those  to  whom  they 
owe;  for  all  the  notes,  or  evidences  of  what  they 
owe,  which  we  see  in  circulation,  have  been  lent  to 
somebody  on  an  interest  which  is  levied  again  on  us 
through  the  medium  of  commerce.  And  they  are 
so  ready  still  to  deal  out  their  liberalities  to  us,  that 
they  are  now  willing  to  let  themselves  run  in  our 
debt  ninety  millions  more,  on  our  paying  them  the 
same  premium  of  six  or  eight  per  cent,  interest,  and 
on  the  same  legal  exemption  from  the  repayment  of 
more  than  thirty  millions  of  the  debt,  when  it  shall 
be  called  for.  But  let  us  look  at  this  principle  in  its 
original  form,  and  its  copy  will  then  be  equally  under- 
stood. "  A  public  debt  is  a  public  blessing."  That 
our  debt  was  juggled  from  forty-three  up  to  eighty 
millions,  and  funded  at  that  amount,  according  to 
this  opinion  was  a  great  public  blessing,  because  the 
evidences  of  it  could  be  vested  in  commerce,  and 
thus  converted  into  active  capital,  and  then  the 
more  the  debt  was  made  to  be,  the ,  more  active 
capital  was  created.  That  is  to  say,  the  creditors 
could  now  employ  in  commerce  the  money  due  them 
from  the  public,  and  make  from  it  an  annual  profit 
of  five  per  cent.,  or  four  millions  of  dollars.  But 
observe,  that  the  public  were  at  the  same  time  pay- 
ing on  it  an  interest  of  exactly  the  same  amount  of 
four  millions  of  dollars.  Where  then  is  the  gain  to 
either   party,   which   makes   it   a   public  blessing? 


4^2  Jefferson's  Works 

There  is  no  change  in  the  state  of  things,  but  of 
persons  only.  A  has  a  debt  due  to  him  from  the 
public,  of  which  he  holds  their  certificate  as  evidence, 
and  on  which  he  is  receiving  an  annual  interest.  He 
wishes,  however,  to  have  the  money  itself,  and  to 
go  into  business  with  it.  B  has  an  equal  sum  of 
money  in  business,  but  wishes  now  to  retire,  and 
live  on  the  interest.  He  therefore  gives  it  to  A  in 
exchange  for  A's  certificates  of  public  stock.  Now, 
then,  A  has  the  money  to  employ  in  business,  which 
B  so  employed  before.  B  has  the  money  on  interest 
to  live  on,  which  A  lived  on  before;  and  the  public 
pays  the  interest  to  B  which  they  paid  to  A  before. 
Here  is  no  new  creation  of  capital,  no  additional 
money  employed,  nor  even  a  change  in  the  employ- 
ment of  a  single  dollar.  The  only  change  is  of 
place  between  A  and  B  in  which  we  discover  no 
creation  of  capital,  nor  public  blessing.  Suppose, 
again,  the  public  to  owe  nothing.  Then  A  not 
having  lent  his  money  to  the  public,  would  be  in 
possession  of  it  himself,  and  would  go  into  business 
without  the  previous  operation  of  selling  stock. 
Here  again,  the  same  quantity  of  capital  is  em- 
ployed as  in  the  former  case,  though  no  public  debt 
exists.  In  neither  case  is  there  any  creation  of 
active  capital,  nor  other  difference  than  that  there 
is  a  public  debt  in  the  first  case,  and  none  in  the  last; 
and  we  may  safely  ask  which  of  the  two  situations 
is  most  truly  a  public  blessing?  If,  then,  a  public 
debt  be    no  public   blessing,    we   may   pronounce, 


Correspondence  423 

a  fortiori,  that  a  private  one  cannot  be  so.  If  the 
debt  which  the  banking  companies  owe  be  a  blessing 
to  anybody,  it  is  to  themselves  alone,  who  are  real- 
izing a  solid  interest  of  eight  or  ten  per  cent,  on  it. 
As  to  the  public,  these  companies  have  banished  all 
our  gold  and  silver  medium,  which,  before  their  in- 
stitution, we  had  without  interest,  which  never  could 
have  perished  in  our  hands,  and  would  have  been  our 
salvation  now  in  the  hour  of  war;  instead  of  which 
they  have  given  us  two  hundred  million  of  froth  and 
bubble,  on  which  we  are  to  pay  them  heavy  interest, 
until  it  shall  vanish  into  air,  as  Morris'  notes  did. 
We  are  warranted,  then,  in  affirming  that  this  parody 
on  the  principle  of  "  a  public  debt  being  a  public 
blessing, "  and  its  mutation  into  the  blessing  of  private 
instead  of  public  debts,  is  as  ridiculous  as  the  original 
principle  itself.  In  both  cases,  he  truth  is,  that 
capital  may  be  produced  by  industry,  and  accumu- 
lated by  economy;  but  jugglers  only  will  propose 
to  create  it  by  legerdemain  tricks  with  paper. 

I  have  called  the  actual  circulation  of  bank  paper 
in  the  United  States,  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars. 
I  do  not  recollect  where  I  have  seen  this  estimate; 
but  I  retain  the  impression  that  I  thought  it  just  at 
the  time.  It  may  be  tested,  however,  by  a  list  of 
the  banks  now  in  the  United  States,  and  the  amount 
of  their  capital.  I  have  no  means  of  recurring  to 
such  a  list  for  the  present  day;  but  I  turn  to  two 
lists  in  my  possession  for  the  years  of  1803  and 
1804. 


424  Jefferson's  Works 

In  1803,  there  were  thirty-four  banks, 
whose  capital  was.  .: $28,902,000 

In  1804,  there  were  sixty-six,  conse- 
quently thirty-two  additional  ones. 
Their  capital  is  not  stated,  but  at  the 
average  of  the  others,  (excluding  the 
highest,  that  of  the  United  States, 
which  was  of  ten  millions,)  they 
would  be  of  six  hundred  thousand 
dollars  each,  and  add 19,200,000 

Making  a  total  of .  .  . .   $48,102,000 

or  say  of  fifty  millions  in  round  numbers.  Now, 
every  one  knows  the  immense  multiplication  of 
these  institutions  since  1804.  If  they  have  only 
doubled,  their  capital  will  be  of  one  hundred  millions 
and  if  trebled,  as  I  think  probable,  it  will  be  one 
hundred  and  fifty  millions,  on  which  they  are  at 
liberty  to  circulate  treble  the  amount.  I  should 
sooner,  therefore,  believe  two  hundred  millions  to 
be  far  below  than  above  the  actual  circulation.  In 
England,  by  a  late  parliamentary  document,  (see 
Virginia  Argus  of  October  the  18th,  18 13,  and  other 
public  papers  of  about  that  date,)  it  appears  that  six 
years  ago  the  Bank  of  England  had  twelve  millions 
of  pounds  sterling  in  circulation,  which  had  in- 
creased to  forty-two  millions  in  1812,  or  to  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty-nine  millions  of  dollars.  What  pro- 
portion all  the  other  banks  may  add  to  this,  I  do  not 
know;   if  we  were  allowed  to  suppose  they  equal  it, 


Correspondence  425 

this  would  give  a  circulation  of  three  hundred  and 
seventy-eight  millions,  or  the  double  of  ours  on  a 
double  population.  But  that  nation  is  essentially 
commercial,  ours  essentially  agricultural,  and  need- 
ing, therefore,  less  circulating  medium,  because  the 
produce  of  the  husbandman  comes  but  once  a  year, 
and  is  then  partly  consumed  at  home,  partly  ex- 
changed by  barter.  The  dollar,  which  was  of  four 
shillings  and  sixpence  sterling,  was,  by  the  same  docu- 
ment, stated  to  be  then  six  shillings  and  nine  pence, 
a  depreciation  of  exactly  fifty  per  cent.  The  average 
price  of  wheat  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  at  the 
commencement  of  its  present  war  with  England,  was 
about  a  French  crown,  of  one  hundred  and  ten  cents, 
the  bushel.  With  us  it  was  one  hundred  cents,  and 
consequently  we  could  send  it  there  in  competition 
with  their  own.  That  ordinary  price  has  now 
doubled  with  us,  and  more  than  doubled  in  England; 
and  although  a  part  of  this  augmentation  may  pro- 
ceed from  the  war  demand,  yet  from  the  extraordi- 
nary nominal  rise  in  the  prices  of  land  and  labor  here, 
both  of  which  have  nearly  doubled  in  that  period, 
and  are  still  rising  with  every  new  bank,  it  is  evident 
that  were  a  general  peace  to  take  place  to-morrow, 
and  time  allowed  for  the  re-establishment  of  com- 
merce, justice,  and  order,  we  could  not  afford  to 
raise  wheat  for  much  less  than  two  dollars,  while 
the  continent  of  Europe,  having  no  paper  circula- 
tion, and  that  of  its  specie  not  being  augmented, 
would  raise  it  at  their  former  price  of  one  hundred 


426  Jefferson's  Works 

and  ten  cents.  It  follows,  then,  that  with  our  re- 
dundancy of  paper,  we  cannot,  after  peace,  send  a 
bushel  of  wheat  to  Europe,  unless  extraordinary 
circumstances  double  its  price  in  particular  places, 
and  that  then  the  exporting  countries  of  Europe 
could  undersell  us. 

It  is  said  that  our  paper  is  as  good  as  silver,  because 
we  may  have  silver  for  it  at  the  bank  where  it  issues. 
This  is  not  true.  One,  two,  or  three  persons  might 
have  it;  but  a  general  application  would  soon  ex- 
haust their  vaults,  and  leave  a  ruinous  proportion 
of  their  paper  in  its  intrinsic  worthless  form.  It  is 
a  fallacious  pretence,  for  another  reason.  The  in- 
habitants of  the  banking  cities  might  obtain  cash 
for  their  paper,  as  far  as  the  cash  of  the  vaults  would 
hold  out,  but  distance  puts  it  out  of  the  power  of  the 
country  to  do  this.  A  farmer  having  a  note  of  a 
Boston  or  Charleston  bank,  distant  hundreds  of 
miles,  has  no  means  of  calling  for  the  cash.  And 
while  these  calls  are  impracticable  for  the  country, 
the  banks  have  no  fear  of  their  being  made  from  the 
towns;  because  their  inhabitants  are  mostly  on 
their  books,  and  there  on  sufferance  only,  and  during 
good  behavior. 

In  this  state  of  things,  we  are  called  on  to  add 
ninety  millions  more  to  the  circulation.  Proceeding 
in  this  career,  it  is  infallible,  that  we  must  end  where 
the  revolutionary  paper  ended.  Two  hundred  mil- 
lions was  the  whole  amount  of  all  the  emissions  of 
the  old  Congress,  at  which  point  their  bills  ceased 


Correspondence  427 

to  circulate.  We  are  now  at  that  sum,  but  with 
treble  the  population,  and  of  course  a  longer  tether. 
Our  depreciation  is,  as  yet,  but  about  two  for  one. 
Owing  to  the  support  its  credit  receives  from  the 
small  reservoirs  of  specie  in  the  vaults  of  the  banks, 
it  is  impossible  to  say  at  what  point  their  notes  will 
stop.  Nothing  is  necessary  to  effect  it  but  a  general 
alarm ;  and  that  may  take  place  whenever  the  public 
shall  begin  to  reflect  on,  and  perceive  the  impossi- 
bility that  the  banks  should  repay  this  sum.  At 
present,  caution  is  inspired  no  farther  than  to  keep 
prudent  men  from  selling  property  on  long  pay- 
ments. Let  us  suppose  the  panic  to  arise  at  three 
hundred  millions,  a  point  to  which  every  session  of 
the  legislatures  hasten  us  by  long  strides.  Nobody 
dreams  that  they  would  have  three  hundred  millions 
of  specie  to  satisfy  the  holders  of  their  notes.  Were 
they  even  to  top  now,  no  one  supposes  they  have 
two  hundred  millions  in  cash,  or  even  the  sixty-six 
and  two-third  millions,  to  which  amount  alone  the 
law  compels  them  to  repay.  One  hundred  and 
thirty- three  and  one- third  millions  of  loss,  then,  is 
thrown  on  the  public  by  law ;  and  as  to  the  sixty-six 
and  two-thirds,  which  they  are  legally  bound  to  pay, 
and  ought  to  have  in  their  vaults,  every  one  knows 
there  is  no  such  amount  of  cash  in  the  United  States, 
and  what  would  be  the  course  with  what  they  really 
have  there  ?  Their  notes  are  refused.  Cash  is  called 
for.  The  inhabitants  of  the  banking  towns  will  get 
what  is  in  the  vaults,  until  a  few  banks  declare  their 


428  Jefferson's  Works 

insolvency;  when,  the  general  crush  becoming  evi- 
dent, the  others  will  withdraw  even  the  cash  they 
have,  declare  their  bankruptcy  at  once,  and  leave 
an  empty  house  and  empty  coffers  for  the  holders 
of  their  notes.  In  this  scramble  of  creditors,  the 
country  gets  nothing,  the  towns  but  little.  What 
are  they  to  do  ?  Bring  suits  ?  A  million  of  creditors 
bring  a  million  of  suits  against  John  Nokes  and 
Robert  Styles,  wheresoever  to  be  found?  All  non- 
sense. The  loss  is  total.  And  a  sum  is  thus  swin- 
dled from  our  citizens,  of  seven  times  the  amount 
of  the  real  debt,  and  four  times  that  of  the  fictitious 
one  of  the  United  States,  at  the  close  of  the  war.  All 
this  they  will  justly  charge  on  their  legislatures;  but 
this  will  be  poor  satisfaction  for  the  two  or  three 
hundred  millions  they  will  have  lost.  It  is  time, 
then,  for  the  public  functionaries  to  look  to  this. 
Perhaps  it  may  not  be  too  late.  Perhaps,  by  giving 
time  to  the  banks,  they  may  call  in  and  pay  off  their 
paper  by  degrees.  But  no  remedy  is  ever  to  be  ex- 
pected while  it  rests  with  the  State  legislatures. 
Personal  motive  can  be  excited  through  so  many 
avenues  to  their  will,  that,  in  their  hands,  it  will 
continue  to  go  on  from  bad  to  worse,  until  the  catas- 
trophe overwhelms  us.  I  still  believe,  however,  that 
on  proper  representations  of  the  subject,  a  great  pro- 
portion of  these  legislatures  would  cede  to  Congress 
their  power  of  establishing  banks,  saving  the  charter 
rights  already  granted.  And  this  should  be  asked, 
not  by  way  of  amendment  to  the  Constitution,  be^ 


Correspondence  429 

cause  until  three-fourths  should  consent,  nothing 
could  be  done ;  but  accepted  from  them  one  by  one, 
singly,  as  their  consent  might  be  obtained.  Any 
single  State,  even  if  no  other  should  come  into  the 
measure,  would  find  its  interest  in  arresting  foreign 
bank  paper  immediately,  and  its  own  by  degrees. 
Specie  would  flow  in  on  them  as  paper  disappeared. 
Their  own  banks  would  call  in  and  pay  off  their  notes 
gradually,  and  their  constituents  would  thus  be  saved 
from  the  general  wreck.  Should  the  greater  part  of 
the  States  concede,  as  is  expected,  their  power  over 
banks  to  Congress,  besides  insuring  their  own  safety, 
the  paper  of  the  non-conceding  States  might  be  so 
checked  and  circumscribed,  by  prohibiting  its  receipt 
in  any  of  the  conceding  States,  and  even  in  the  non- 
conceding  as  to  duties,  taxes,  judgments,  or  other 
demands  of  the  United  States,  or  of  the  citizens  of 
other  States,  that  it  would  soon  die  of  itself,  and  the 
medium  of  gold  and  silver  be  universally  restored. 
This  is  what  ought  to  be  done.  But  it  will  not  be 
done.  Carthago  non  delibitur.  The  overbearing 
clamor  of  merchants,  speculators,  and  projectors, 
will  drive  us  before  them  with  our  eyes  open,  until, 
as  in  France,  under  the  Mississippi  bubble,  our  citi- 
zens will  be  overtaken  by  the  crush  of  this  baseless 
fabric,  without  other  satisfaction  than  that  of  execra- 
tions on  the  heads  of  those  functionaries,  who,  from 
ignorance,  pusillanimity  or  corruption,  have  be- 
trayed the  fruits  of  their  industry  into  the  hands  of 
projectors  and  swindlers. 


43°  Jefferson's  Works 

When  I  speak  comparatively  of  the  paper  emission 
of  the  old  Congress  and  the  present  banks,  let  it  not 
be  imagined  that  I  cover  them  under  the  same  man- 
tle. The  object  of  the  former  was  a  holy  one;  for 
if  ever  there  was  a  holy  war,  it  was  that  which  saved 
our  liberties  and  gave  us  independence.  The  object 
of  the  latter,  is  to  enrich  swindlers  at  the  expense  of 
the  honest  and  industrious  part  of  the  nation. 

The  sum  of  what  has  been  said  is,  that  pretermit- 
ting the  constitutional  question  on  the  authority  of 
Congress,  and  considering  this  application  on  the 
grounds  of  reason  alone,  it  would  be  best  that  our 
medium  should  be  so  proportioned  to  our  produce, 
as  to  be  on  a  par  with  that  of  the  countries  with 
which  we  trade,  and  whose  medium  is  in  a  sound 
state;  that  specie  is  the  most  perfect  medium, 
because  it  will  preserve  its  own  level;  because,  having 
intrinsic  and  universal  value,  it  can  never  die  in  our 
hands,  and  it  is  the  surest  resource  of  reliance  in  time 
of  war;  that  the  trifling  economy  of  paper,  as  a 
cheaper  medium,  or  its  convenience  for  transmission, 
weighs  nothing  in  opposition  to  the  advantages  of 
the  precious  metals;  that  it  is  liable  to  be  abused, 
has  been,  is,  and  forever  will  be  abused,  in  every 
country  in  which  it  is  permitted;  that  it  is  already 
at  a  term  of  abuse  in  these  States,  which  has  never 
been  reached  by  any  other  nation,  France  excepted, 
whose  dreadful  catastrophe  should  be  a  warning 
against  the  instrument  which  produced  it;  that  we 
are  already  at  ten  or  twenty  times  the  due  quantity 


Correspondence  43  * 

of  medium;  insomuch,  that  no  man  knows  what  his 
property  is  now  worth,  because  it  is  bloating  while 
he  is  calculating ;  and  still  less  what  it  will  be  worth 
when  the  medium  shall  be  relieved  from  its  present 
dropsical  state;  and  that  it  is  a  palpable  falsehood 
to  say  we  can  have  specie  for  our  paper  whenever 
demanded.  Instead,  then,  of  yielding  to  the  cries 
of  scarcity  of  medium  set  up  by  speculators,  pro- 
jectors and  commercial  gamblers,  no  endeavors 
should  be  spared  to  begin  the  work  of  reducing  it  by 
such  gradual  means  as  may  give  time  to  private  for- 
tunes to  preserve  their  poise,  and  settle  down  with 
the  subsiding  medium;  and  that,  for  this  purpose, 
the  States  should  be  urged  to  concede  to  the  General 
Government,  with  a  saving  of  chartered  rights,  the 
exclusive  power  of  establishing  banks  of  discount  for 
paper. 

To  the  existence  of  banks  of  discount  for  cash,  as 
on  the  continent  of  Europe,  there  can  be  no  objection, 
because  there  can  be  no  danger  of  abuse,  and  they 
are  a  convenience  both  to  merchants  and  individuals. 
I  think  they  should  even  be  encouraged,  by  allowing 
them  a  larger  than  legal  interest  on  short  discounts, 
and  tapering  thence,  in  proportion  as  the  term  of  dis- 
count is  lengthened,  down  to  legal  interest  on  those 
of  a  year  or  more.  Even  banks  of  deposit,  where 
cash  should  be  lodged,  and  a  paper  acknowledgment 
taken  out  as  its  representative,  entitled  to  a  return 
of  the  cash  on  demand,  would  be  convenient  for 
remittances,  travelling  persons,  etc.     But,  liable  as 


43*  Jefferson's  Works 

its  cash  would  be  to  be  pilfered  and  robbed,  and  its 
paper  to  be  fraudulently  re-issued,  or  issued  without 
deposit,  it  would  require  skilful  and  strict  regulation. 
This  would  differ  from  the  bank  of  Amsterdam,  in 
the  circumstance  that  the  cash  could  be  redeemed 
on  returning  the  note. 

When  I  commenced  this  letter  to  you,  my  dear  Sir, 
on  Mr.  Law's  memorial,  I  expected  a  short  one  would 
have  answered  that.  But  as  I  advanced,  the  subject 
branched  itself  before  me  into  so  many  collateral 
questions,  that  even  the  rapid  views  I  have  taken 
of  each  have  swelled  the  volume  of  my  letter  beyond 
my  expectations,  and,  I  fear,  beyond  your  patience. 
Yet  on  a  revisal  of  it,  I  find  no  part  which  has  not 
so  much  bearing  on  the  subject  as  to  be  worth  merely 
the  time  of  perusal.  I  leave  it  then  as  it  is ;  and  will 
add  only  the  assurances  of  my  constant  and  affec- 
tionate esteem  and  respect. 


TO   JOHN    JACOB    ASTOR,    ESQ. 

Monticello,  November  9,   18 13. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  October  18th  has  been 
duly  received,  and  I  learn  with  great  pleasure  the 
progress  you  have  made  towards  an  establishment 
on  Columbia  river.  I  view  it  as  the  germ  of  a  great, 
free  and  independent  empire  on  that  side  of  our  con- 
tinent, and  that  liberty  and  self-government  spread- 
ing from  that  as  well  as  this  side,  will  ensure  their 
complete  establishment  over  the  whole.     It  must  be 


Correspondence  433 

still  more  gratifying  to  yourself  to  foresee  that  your 
name  will  be  handed  down  with  that  of  Columbus  and 
Raleigh,    as   the   father   of   the   establishment   and 
founder  of  such  an  empire.    It  would  be  an  afflicting 
thing  indeed,  should  the  English  be  able  to  break  up 
the  settlement.     Their  bigotry  to  the  bastard  liberty 
of  their  own  country,  and  habitual  hostility  to  every 
degree  of  freedom  in   any  other,   will  induce  the 
attempt;  they  would  not  lose  the  sale  of  a  bale   of 
furs  for  the  freedom  of  the  whole  world.     But  I  hope 
your  party  will  be  able  to  maintain  themselves.     If 
they  have  assiduously  cultivated  the  interests  and 
affections  of  the  natives,  these  will  enable  them  to 
defend  themselves  against  the  English,  and  furnish 
them  an  asylum  even  if  their  fort  be  lost.     I  hope, 
and  have  no  doubt  our  government  will  do  for  its 
success  whatever  they  have  power  to  do,  and  espe- 
cially that  at  the  negotiations  for  peace,  they  will 
provide,  by  convention  with  the  English,  for  the 
safety  and  independence  of  that  country,  and  an 
acknowledgment  of  our  right  of  patronizing  them 
in  all  cases  of  injury  from  foreign  nations.     But  no 
patronage  or  protection  from  this  quarter  can  secure 
the  settlement  if  it  does  not  cherish  the  affections 
of  the  natives  and  make  it  their  interest  to  uphold  it. 
While  you  are  doing  so  much  for  future  generations 
of  men,   I  sincerely  wish  you  may  find  a  present 
account  in  the  just  profits  you  are  entitled  to  expect 
from  the  enterprise.     I  will  ask  of  the  President  per- 
mission to  read  Mr.  Stuart's  journal.     With  fervent 

VOL.  XIII 28 


434  Jefferson's  Works 

wishes  for  a  happy  issue  to  this  great  undertaking, 
which  promises  to  form  a  remarkable  epoch  in  the 
history  of  mankind,  I  tender  you  the  assurance  of 
my  great  esteem  and  respect. 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  November  12,   18 13. 

Dear  Sir, — As  I  owe  you  more  for  your  letters 
of  October  12th  and  28th  than  I  shall  be  able  to  pay, 
I  shall  begin  with  the  P.  S.  to  the  last. 

I  am  very  sorry  to  say  that  I  cannot  assist  your 
memory  in  the  inquiries  of  your  letter  of  August  2 2d. 
I  really  know  not  who  was  the  compositor  of  any  one 
of  the  petitions  or  addresses  you  enumerate.  Nay, 
further:  I  am  certain  I  never  did  know.  I  was  so 
shallow  a  politician  that  I  was  not  aware  of  the  im- 
portance of  those  compositions.  They  all  appeared 
to  me,  in  the  circumstances  of  the  country,  like  chil- 
dren's play  at  marbles  or  push-pin,  or  like  misses  in 
their  teens,  emulating  each  other  in  their  pearls,  their 
bracelets,  their  diamond  pins  and  Brussels  lace. 

In  the  Congress  of  1774,  there  was  not  one  mem- 
ber, except  Patrick  Henry,  who  appeared  to  me 
sensible  of  the  precipice,  or  rather  the  pinnacle  on 
which  we  stood,  and  had  candor  and  courage  enough 
to  acknowledge  it.  America  is  in  total  ignorance, 
or  under  infinite  deception  concerning  that  assembly. 
To  draw  the  characters  of  them  all  would  require  a 
volume,  and  would  now  be  considered  as  a  carica- 


Correspondence  43  5 

tured  print.     One-third  Tories,  another  Whigs,  and 
the  rest  Mongrels. 

There  was  a  little'  aristocracy  among  us  of  talents 
and  letters.  Mr.  Dickinson  was  primus  interpares, 
the  bell-wether,  the  leader  of  the  aristocratical  flock. 

Billy,  alias  Governor  Livingston,  and  his  son-in- 
law,  Mr.  Jay,  were  of  the  privileged  order.  The 
credit  of  most  if  not  all  those  compositions,  was 
often  if  not  generally  given  to  one  or  the  other  of 
these  choice  spirits.  Mr.  Dickinson,  however,  was 
not  on  any  of  the  original  committees  He  came 
not  into  Congress  till  October  17th.  He  was  not 
appointed  till  the  15th  by  his  assembly. 

Vol.  1,  30.  Congress  adjourned  October  27th 
though  our  correct  secretary  has  not  recorded  any 
final  adjournment  or  dissolution.  Mr.  Dickinson 
was  in  Congress  but  ten  days.  The  business  was 
all  prepared,  arranged,  and  even  in  a  manner  finished 
before  his  arrival. 

R.  H.  Lee  was  the  chairman  of  the  committee  foi- 
preparing  the  loyal  and  dutiful  address  to  his  majesty, 
Johnson  and  Henry  were  acute  spirits,  and  under- 
stood the  controversy  very  well,  though  they  had  not 
the  advantages  of  education  like  Lee  and  John  Rut- 
ledge. 

The  subject  had  been  near  a  month  under  discus- 
sion in  Congress,  and  most  of  the  materials  thrown 
out  there.  It  underwent  another  deliberation  in 
committee,  after  which  they  made  the  customary 
compliment  to  their  chairman,  by  requesting  him  to 


436  Jefferson's  Works 

prepare  and  report  a  draught,  which  was  done,  and 
after  examination,  correction,  amelioration  or  pej ora- 
tion, as  usual  reported  to  Congress.  October  3d,  4th 
and  5th  were  taken  up  in  debating  and  deliberating 
on  matters  proper  to  be  contained  in  the  address  to 
his  majesty,  vol.  122.  October  21st.  The  address 
to  the  king  was,  after  debate,  re-committed,  and  Mr. 
John  Dickinson  added  to  the  committee.  The  first 
draught  was  made,  and  all  the  essential  materials  put 
together  by  Lee.  It  might  be  embellished  and 
seasoned  afterwards  with  some  of  Mr.  Dickinson's 
piety,  but  I  know  not  that  it  was.  Neat  and  hand- 
some as  the  composition  is,  having  never  had  any 
confidence  in  the  utility  of  it,  I  never  have  thought 
much  about  it  since  it  was  adopted.  Indeed,  I  never 
bestowed  much  attention  on  any  of  those  addresses 
which  were  all  but  repetitions  of  the  same  things, 
the  same  facts  and  arguments,  dress  and  ornament 
rather  than  body,  soul  or  substance.  My  thoughts 
-and  cares  were  nearly  monopolized  by  the  theory  of 
our  rights  and  wrongs,  by  measures  for  the  defence 
of  the  country,  and  the  means  of  governing  ourselves. 
I  was  in  a  great  error,  no  doubt,  and  am  ashamed 
to  confess  it ;  for  those  things  were  necessary  to  give 
popularity  to  our  cause  both  at  home  and  abroad. 
And  to  show  my  stupidity  in  a  stronger  light,  the 
reputation  of  any  one  of  those  compositions  has  been 
a  more  splendid  distinction  than  any  aristocratical 
star  or  garter  in  the  escutcheon  of  every  man  who 
has  enjoyed  it.     Very  sorry  that  I  cannot  give  you 


Correspondence  437 

more  satisfactory  information,  and  more  so  that  I 
cannot  at  present  give  more  attention  to  your  two 
last  excellent  letters.  I  am,  as  usual,  affectionately 
yours. 

N.  B.  I  am  almost  ready  to  believe  that  John 
Taylor,  of  Caroline,  or  of  Hazlewood,  Port  Royal, 
Virginia,  is  the  author  of  630  pages  of  printed  octavo 
upon  my  books  that  I  have  received.  The  style 
answers  every  characteristic  that  you  have  inti- 
mated. Within  a  week  I  have  received  and  looked 
into  his  Arator.  They  must  spring  from  the  same 
brain,  as  Minerva  issued  from  the  head  of  Jove,  or 
rather  as  Venus  rose  from  the  froth  of  the  sea.  There 
is,  however,  a  great  deal  of  good  sense  in  Arator,  and 
there  is  some  in  his  Aristocracy. 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS   JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  November  15,   18 13. 

Dear  Sir, — Accept  my  thanks  for  the  compre- 
hensive syllabus  in  your  favor  of  October  12th. 

The  Psalms  of  David,  in  sublimity,  beauty,  pathos 
and  originality,  or,  in  one  word,  in  poetry,  are  supe- 
rior to  all  the  odes,  hymns  and  songs  in  our  language. 
But  I  had  rather  read  them  in  our  prose  translation, 
than  in  any  version  I  have  seen.  His  morality,  how- 
ever, often  shocks  me,  like  Tristram  Shandy's  exe- 
crations, 


438  lefferson^a  Works 

Blacklock's  translation  of  Horace's  "  Justum,"  is 
admirable;  superior  to  Addison's.  Could  David  be 
translated  as  well,  his  superiority  would  be  univer- 
sally acknowledged.  We  cannot  compare  the  sublime 
poetry.  By  Virgil's  "Pollio,"  we  may  conjecture 
there  was  prophecy  as  well  as  sublimity.  Why  have 
those  verses  been  annihilated?  I  suspect  Platonic 
Christianity,  Pharisaical  Judaism  or  Machiavellian 
politics,  in  this  case,  as  in  all  other  cases,  of  the  de- 
struction of  records  and  literary  monuments, 

The  auri  sacra  fames,  et  dominandi  saeva  cupido. 

Among  all  your  researches  in  Hebrew  history  and 
controversy,  have  you  ever  met  a  book  the  design 
of  which  is  to  prove  that  the  ten  commandments, 
as  we  have  them  in  our  Catechisms  and  hung  up  in 
our  churches,  were  not  the  ten  commandments  writ- 
ten by  the  finger  of  God  upon  tables  delivered  to 
Moses  on  Mount  Sinai,  and  broken  by  him  in  ^  pas- 
sion with  Aaron  for  his  golden  calf,  nor  those  after- 
wards engraved  by  him  on  tables  of  stone ;  but  a  very 
different  set  of  commandments? 

There  is  such  a  book,  by  J.  W.  Goethe;  Sehriften, 
Berlin,  1775-1779.  I  wish  to  see  this  book.  You 
will  perceive  the  question  in  Exodus,  20:  1,  17,  22, 
28,  chapter  24:  3,  etc.;  chapter  24:  12;  chapter  25: 
3 1 ;  chapter  31:  18;  chapter  31:  19 ;  chapter  34 :  1 ; 
chapter  34:    10,  etc. 

I  will  make  a  covenant  with  all  this  people.  Ob- 
serve that  which  I  command  this  day: 


Correspondence  439 

1.  Thou  shalt  not  adore  any  other  God.  There- 
fore take  heed  not  to  enter  into  covenant  with  the 
inhabitants  of  the  country;  neither  take  for  your 
sons  their  daughters  in  marriage.  They  would  allure 
thee  to  the  worship  of  false  gods.  Much  less  shall 
you  in  any  place  erect  images. 

2.  Thp  feast  of  unleavened  bread  shalt  thou  keep. 
Seven  days  shalt  thou  eat  unleavened  bread,  at  the 
time  of  the  month  Abib;  to  remember  that  about 
that  time,  I  delivered  thee  from  Egypt. 

3.  Every  first  born  of  the  mother  is  mine;  the 
male  of  thine  herd,  be  it  stock  or  flock.  But  you 
shall  replace  the  first  born  of  an  ass  with  a  sheep. 
The  first  born  of  your  sons  shall  you  redeem.  No 
man  shall  appear  before  me  with  empty  hands. 

4.  Six  days  shalt  thou  labor.  The  seventh  day 
thou  shalt  rest  from  ploughing  and  gathering. 

5.  The  feast  of  weeks  shalt  thou  keep  with  the 
firstlings  of  the  wheat  harvest ;  and  the  feast  of  har- 
vesting at  the  end  of  the  year. 

6.  Thrice  in  every  year  all  male  persons  shall 
appear  before  the  Lord.  Nobody  shall  invade  your 
country,  as  long  as  you  obey  this  command. 

7.  Thou  shalt  not  sacrifice  the  blood  of  a  sacrifice 
of  mine,  upon  leavened  bread. 

8.  The  sacrifice  of  the  Passover  shall  not  remain 
till  the  next  day. 

9.  The  firstlings  of  the  produce  of  your  land,  thou 
shalt  bring  to  the  house  of  the  Lord. 

10.  Thou  shalt  not  boil  the  kid,  while  it  is  yet  suck- 
ing. 


44°  Jefferson's  Works 

And  the  Lord  spake  to  Moses :  Write  these  words, 
as  after  these  words  I  made  with  you  and  with  Israel 
a  covenant. 

I  know  not  whether  Goethe  translated  or  abridged 
from  the  Hebrew,  or  whether  he  used  any  translation, 
Greek,  Latin,  or  German.  But  he  differs  in  form  and 
words  somewhat  from  our  version,  Exodus  34:  10  to 
28.  The  sense  seems  to  be  the  same.  The  tables 
were  the  evidence  of  the  covenant,  by  which  the 
Almighty  attached  the  people  of  Israel  to  himself. 
By  these  laws  they  were  separated  from  all  other 
nations,  and  were  reminded  of  the  principal  epochs 
of  their  history. 

When  and  where  originated  our  ten  command- 
ments? The  tables  and  the  ark  were  lost.  Authen- 
tic copies  in  few,  if  any  hands;  the  ten  Precepts 
could  not  be  observed,  and  were  little  remembered. 

If  the  book  of  Deuteronomy  was  compiled,  during 
or  after  the  Babylonian  captivity,  from  traditions, 
the  error  or  amendment  might  come  in  those.  j 

But  you  must  be  weary,  as  I  am  at  present  of  prob- 
lems, conjectures,  and  paradoxes,  concerning  He- 
brew, Grecian  and  Christian  and  all  other  antiquities; 
but  while  we  believe  that  the  finis  bonorum  will  be 
happy,  we  may  leave  learned  men  to  their  disquisi- 
tions and  criticisms. 

I  admire  your  employment  in  selecting  the  phi- 
losophy and  divinity  of  Jesus,  and  separating  it  from 
all  mixtures.  If  I  had  eyes  and  nerves  I  would  go 
through  both  Testaments  and  mark  all  that  I  under- 


Correspondence  441 

stand.  To  examine  the  Mishna,  Gemara,  Cabbala, 
Jezirah,  Sohar,  Cosri  and  Talmud  of  the  Hebrews 
would  require  the  life  of  Methuselah,  and  after  all 
his  969  years  would  be  wasted  to  very  little  purpose. 
The  daemon  of  hierarchical  despotism  has  been  at 
work  both  with  the  Mishna  and  Gemara.  In  1238 
a  French  Jew  made  a  discovery  to  the  Pope  (Gregory 
Ninth)  of  the  heresies  of  the  Talmud.  The  Pope 
sent  thirty-five  articles  of  error  to  the  Archbishops 
of  France,  requiring  them  to  seize  the  books  of  the 
Jews  and  burn  all  that  contained  any  errors.  He 
wrote  in  the  same  terms  to  the  kings  of  France,  Eng- 
land, Aragon,  Castile,  Leon,  Navarre  and  Portugal. 
In  consequence  of  this  order,  twenty  cartloads  of 
Hebrew  books  were  burnt  in  France ;  an  d  how  many 
times  twenty  cartloads  were  destroyed  in  the  other 
kingdoms?  The  Talmud  of  Babylon  and  that  of 
Jerusalem  were  composed  from  120  to  500  years  after 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem. 

If  Lightfoot  derived  light  from  what  escaped  from 
Gregory's  fury,  in  explaining  many  passages  in  the 
New  Testament,  by  comparing  the  expressions  of 
the  Mishna  with  those  of  the  Apostles  and  Evan- 
gelists, how  many  proofs  of  the  corruptions  of  Chris- 
tianity might  we  find  in  the  passages  burnt? 


THE  WRITINGS  OF 

Thomas  Jefferson 

Definitive  j£t>ition 

CONTAINING   HIS 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY,    NOTES     ON     VIRGINIA,    PARLIA- 
MENTARY    MANUAL,     OFFICIAL    PAPERS, 
MESSAGES  AND  ADDRESSES,  AND  OTHER 
WRITINGS,  OFFICIAL  AND  PRIVATE, 
NOW  COLLECTED  AND 

PU  BUSH  ED  IN  THEIR  ENTIRETY  FOR  THE  FIRST  TIME 

INCLUDING 

ALL  OF  THE  ORIGINAL  MANUSCRIPTS,  DEPOSITED  IN  THE  DEPARTMENT 

OF  STATE  AND  PUBLISHED  IN  1853  BY  ORDER  OF  THE 

JOINT  COMMITTEE  OF  CONGRESS 

WITH  NUMEROUS  ILLUSTRATIONS 

AND 

A    COMPREHENSIVE    ANALYTICAL    INDEX 


Albert  Ellery  Bergh 

EDITOR 


VOL.  XIV, 


ISSUED  UNDER  THE  AUSPICES  OF 

The  Thomas  Jbfferson  Memorial  Association 


OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 
1907 


Copyright,  1905, 

BY 

The  Thomas  Jefferson  Memorial 
Association 


THE  MEMORY  OF  THOMAS  JEFFERSON.3 


As  one  glances  around  this  room,  one  is  prompted 
to  say  in  the  last  words  of  John  Adams,  "  Thomas 
Jefferson  still  survives."  The  spirit  of  the  Great 
Commoner  is  abroad  in  the  land,  and  a  grateful 
nation  pays  its  tribute  to-night.  That  we  may 
have  a  clear  and  lucid  understanding  of  the  immense 
influence  exercised  by  Jefferson,  not  only  in  his  own 
day,  but  upon  all  subsequent  times,  it  is  necessary 
to  define  his  environment. 

Neither  Washington,  Jefferson  nor  Madison  was 
of  Virginia's  elect,  nor  did  they  come  from  the 
landed  aristocracy.  Jefferson  came  upon  the  stage 
of  active  affairs  at  a  time  when  Virginia  was  under 
the  domination  of  a  roystering,  gambling,  hoidenish 
aristocracy.  The  law  of  entail,  the  right  of  the 
first-born  to  inherit,  and  the  established  church 
confronted  him.  Charmed  with  the  burning  oratory 
of  Henry,  whose  contention,  that  taxation  without 
representation  was  tyranny,  appealed  to  younger 
generation  of  Virginians,   Jefferson  cast  aside  his 

1  Address  delivered  by  Hon.  John  B.  Stanchfield,  at  the  banquet 
given  by  the  Democratic  Club  in  celebration  of  the  156th  Birthday 
of  Thomas  Jefferson,  on  April  13th,  1899,  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera' 
House,  New  York  City. 

VOL.   XIV — A 


ii       The  Memory  of  Thomas  Jefferson 

profession  of  the  law,  and  with  the  announced 
determination  that  he  would  never  accept  emolu- 
ment or  compensation  other  than  the  salary  given 
him,  entered  upon  a  political  career. 

In  his  public  life  of  upwards  of  forty  years,  cover- 
ing the  entire  range  of  preferment  from  the  humblest 
to  the  highest,  two  things  stand  out  with  great 
prominence;  he  never  made  a  speech,  he  never 
waged  a  war.  He  left  the  Presidency  at  the  end  of 
his  second  term  with  the  admiration  and  affectionate 
regard  of  seven  millions  of  people.  The  free  school, 
the  free  church  and  our  free  government,  to  his 
untiring  zeal  and  industry  are  largely  owing.  If 
we  were  to  speak  to  Jefferson's  own  conception  of 
what  had  been  the  accomplished  results  of  his  life's 
work,  the  inscription  found  among  his  belongings 
as  to  what  he  wished  placed  upon  his  tomb  con- 
ciselv  tells  the  tale:  "Here  was  buried  Thomas 
Jefferson,  author  of  the  Declaration  of  American 
Independence,  of  the  Statute  of  Virginia  for  Religious 
Freedom  and  Father  of  the  University  of  Virginia." 
His  residence  in  France  about  the  time  of  the  oncom- 
ing of  the  French  Revolution,  sowed  the  seed  of 
liberty  deep  in  his  heart,  and  from  that  human 
cataclysm  he  imbibed  principles  that  remained 
with  him  to  the  hour  of  his  death.  It  required  civic 
courage  and  personal  valor  of  no  mean  degree  to 
introduce  and  force  upon  the  classes  of  Virginia 
the  abolition  of  the  law  of  entail  and  the  right  of 
primogeniture.     For    this    purpose    he    declined    a 


The  Memory  of  Thomas  Jefferson      iii 

re-election  to  the  House  of  Congress,  and  devoted 
to  it,  in  accomplishing  its  passage,  an  ability  and  an 
industry  that  earned  for  him  during  the  remainder 
of  his  career  the  hatred  of  the  aristocratic  classes 
of  Virginia,  and  the  rancor  of  these  proud  patricians 
followed  him  in  all  his  future  career. 

His  clear  and  perspicuous  eye  saw  that  the  trans- 
mission of  vast  estates  from  one  generation  to  another, 
with  an  established  church  curbing  and  curtailing 
the  religious  opinions  of  the  people,  was  at  war  with 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  theory 
upon  which  our  government  was  built. 

"All  men  shall  be  free  to  profess  and  by  argument 
to  maintain  their  opinions  in  matters  of  religion," 
is  the  key-note  of  his  draft  of  the  act  in  behalf  of 
religious  liberty.  Before  the  spark  of  Revolution 
had  been  kindled,  in  a  memorial  address  to  George 
the  Third,  it  was  Jefferson  who  wrote  the  lines : 

"  Let  those  flatter  who  fear,  it  is  not  an  American 
art.  *  *  *  The  God  who  gave  us  life  gave  us 
liberty  at  the  same  time;  the  hand  of  force  may 
destroy,  but  cannot  disjoin  them." 

So  far  did  Jefferson's  belief  in  self-government 
carry  him,  that  although  a  slave  owner  in  harmony 
with  the  spirit  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived,  we  find 
him  writing  in  1821  of  the  negro,  "nothing  is  more 
certainly  written  in  the  book  of  Fate  than  that 
these  people  are  to  be  free." 

While  the  battle  was  waging  in  the  House  of  Bur- 
gesses against  the  right  of  the  first-born  male  to 


iv     The  Memory  of  Thomas  Jefferson 

inherit,  his  opponents,  under  the  leadership  of  one 
Pendleton,  pleaded  that  the  eldest  son  might  at 
least  take  a  double  share:  "Not,"  was  Jefferson's 
retort,  "until  he  can  eat  a  double  allowance  of  food 
and  do  a  double  allowance  of  work."  "My  pur- 
pose," said  Jefferson  afterwards,  "was  instead  of  an 
aristocracy  of  wealth  to  make  an  opening  for  an 
aristocracy  of  virtue  and  talent." 

With  Jefferson's  induction  into  national  politics 
commences  the  battle  between  those  who  favored 
a  strong  centralized  government,  called  in  those 
days  the  Federalists,  and  those  who  believed  in 
the  ultimate  rule  of  the  people  and  the  greatest 
amount  of  liberty  to  the  citizen  possible,  termed 
Republicans.  Of  the  latter  Jefferson  was  soon  the 
acknowledged  head.  Despite  the  many  contra- 
dictory and  apparently  inconsistent  phrases  and 
sentences  that  his  detractors  may  cull  out  from 
his  voluminous  correspondence,  covering  one-half 
a  century,  the  enduring  fact  remains  that  the  never 
changing  ambition  of  his  life  was  devoted  to  securing 
in  largest  degree  the  right  of  personal  liberty.  In 
Hamilton's  determined  effort  to  make  a  federal 
power  supreme  by  the  maintenance  of  an  excessively 
large  standing  army,  the  annulment  of  State  rights, 
the  creation  of  a  United  States  bank,  and  the 
establishment  of  a  federal  judiciary  with  unlimited 
powers,  Jefferson  saw  the  end  of  the  republic  and 
the  aggressive  approach  of  a  monarchy.  This  con- 
troversy so  defined  and  begun,  terminated  neither 


The  Memory  of  Thomas  Jefferson      v 

with  the  death  of  Hamilton,  nor  Jefferson  at  Mon- 
ticello.  Dressed  in  different  attire,  it  is  the  vital 
issue  of  the  present  day. 

Jefferson  favored  a  separation  from  England 
for  the  ultimate  reason  of  permitting  the  people 
self-government.  He  favored,  passed,  fought  for 
and  enforced  the  right  of  the  free  school  and  the 
free  church,  the  abolition  of  a  United  States  bank, 
and  the  creation  of  an  army  and  navy  no  larger 
than  was  necessary  for  purposes  of  defence,  because 
he  believed  the  people  so  willed,  and  that  these 
principles  harmonized  with  the  largest  share  of 
personal  freedom  in  the  individual. 

With  the  election  of  Jefferson  in  his  controversy 
with  Burr,  by  the  House  of  Representatives,  the 
Republicans,  or  Anti-Federalists,  won  their  first  vic- 
tory. Then,  as  now,  New  York  was  the  central 
battle-ground,  and  party  spirit  ran  high  and  strong. 
A  poet  of  the  day  in  amusing  doggerel  voiced  the 
victory  of  the  anti-federalists  in  characteristic 
speech : 

"The  Federalists  are  down  at  last, 
The  monarchists  completely  cast; 
The  autocrats  are  stripped  of  power, 
Storms  o'er  British  factions  lower. 
Soon  we  Republicans  shall  see 
Columbia's  sons  from  bondage  free. 
Lord,  how  the  Federalists  will  stare 

At  Jefferson  in  Adams'  chair." 

« 

Hence  came  the  Democrats,  and  we  who  believe 
in   the   principles   that   earned   that   victory   have 


vi      The  Memory  of  Thomas  Jefferson 

never  known  another  name.  In  striking  analogy 
to  the  situation  with  which  we  are  confronted  to-day 
was  Jefferson  circumstanced  at  the  time  of  the 
Louisiana  Purchase.  The  Federalists  of  his  time 
contended  with  bitter  animosity  that  sufficient 
unto  the  then  population  of  the  United  States  was 
the  Union  as  it  then  existed.  Undeterred  by  the 
clamor  of  the  minority,  Jefferson  consummated  the 
purchase  of  so  much  landed  territory  as  more  than 
doubled  our  territorial  extent.  When  the  question 
of  the  ratification  of  the  purchase  came  before  Con- 
gress and  was  up  for  debate,  the  Federalists  made 
use  of  the  contention  that  the  acquirement  of  addi- 
tional territory  was  a  violation  of  the  Constitution, 
both  in  its  letter  and  in  its  spirit.  To  this  we  find 
Jefferson  writing  to  his  Attorney  General,  in  1803: 
"  I  quote  this  for  your  consideration,  observing  that 
the  least  there  is  said  about  any  constitutional  diffi- 
culty, the  better;  and  that  it  will  be  desirable  for 
Congress  to  do  what  is  necessary  in  silence.  I  find 
but  one  opinion  as  to  the  necessity  of  shutting  up 
the  Constitution  for  some  time." 

Jefferson  was  inclined  by  the  arbitrary  use  of  his 
majority  in  Congress  to  smother  any  objections  that 
might  be  raised  in  theory  or  in  letter,  to  the  ratifi- 
cation of  his  purchase.  He  relied  upon  the  strong 
underlying  sentiment  of  the  people  to  uphold  his 
act  as  being  for  their  good  and  the  ultimate  advance- 
ment of  the  nation.  While  Congress  was  in  session, 
we  find  him  writing:     " Whatever   Congress  shall 


The  Memory  of  Thomas  Jefferson     vfi 

think  it  necessary  to  do  should  be  done  with  as  little 
debate  as  possible,  and  particularly  as  respects  the 
constitutional  question." 

Jefferson's  earlier  notions  that  the  States  consti- 
tuted a  small  league,  had  changed,  and  with  increas- 
ing wealth,  population  and  power,  he  favored 
increased  territorial  aggrandizement.  As  John 
Quincy  Adams  wrote  our  minister  at  Madrid,  in 
1823,  in  reference  to  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico:  " Those 
islands,  from  their  local  position,  are'  naturally 
appendages  to  the  North  American  continent;  and 
one  of  them,  Cuba,  which  is  almost  in  sight  of  our 
shores,  from  a  multitude  of  considerations,  has 
become  an  object  of  transcendent  importance  to 
the  commercial  and  political  interests  to  our  Union. 
*  *  *  It  is  scarcely  possible  to  resist  the  conviction 
that  the  annexation  of  Cuba  to  our  republic  will  be 
indispensable  to  the  continuance  and  integrity  of 
the  Union  itself." 

So,  Jefferson,  fourteen  years  earlier,  in  a  letter 
to  Madison,  speaking  of  Bonaparte,  said:  "  But 
although  with  difficulty  he  will  consent  to  our 
receiving  Cuba  into  our  Union  *  *  *  that  would 
be  a  price,  and  I  would  immediately  erect  a  column 
on  the  southernmost  limit  of  Cuba,  and  inscribe  on 
it  cne  plus  ultra,'  as  to  us  in  that  direction.  We 
should  then  have  only  to  include  the  north  in  our 
confederacy,  which  would  be,  of  course,  in  the  first 
war,  and  we  should  have  such  an  empire  for  liberty 
as  she  has  never  surveyed  since  the  creation;    and 

VOL.  XIV — B 


viii    The  Memory  of  Thomas  Jefferson 

I  am  persuaded  no  Constitution  was  ever  before  so 
well  calculated  as  ours  for  extensive  empire  and 
self-government. ' ' 

Jefferson  not  only  believed  in  the  destiny  of  the 
republic,  but  he  was  .an  advocate  of  force,  where 
diplomacy  would  not  accomplish  the  desired  results. 
While,  as  chief  magistrate,  he  conducted  no  wars 
for  aggrandizement,  yet  his  correspondence  teems 
with  references  to  the  results  that  would  accrue  to 
us  in  territorial  accessions  by  means  of  war.  He 
was  never  deceived  by  the  diplomatic  assurances  of 
the  powers  of  Europe,  nor  lulled  into  false  security 
by  the  peaceful  attitude  of  the  country  at  the  time 
of  his  Presidential  incumbency.  He  believed  in  the 
proposition  that  the  way  to  secure  peace  is  to  be 
prepared  for  war.  The  autocrat  of  the  Russias 
since  the  promulgation  of  his  memorable  proclama- 
tion in  favor  of  a  general  disarmament  of  the  nations, 
has  quietly  purchased  in  the  shipyards  of  the  world 
strong  and  many  additional  battleships. 

The  great  laureate  of  the  English-speaking  peo- 
ples, nursed  back  to  health  in  the  salubrious  air  of 
New  York,  correctly  read  the  signs  of  the  times 
when  he  sang — 

"When  he  shows  as  seeking  quarter,  with  paw-like 

hands  in  prayer — 
That  is  the  time  of  peril — the  time  of  the  truce  of  the 

bear." 

It  has  come  to  be  a  fad  with  those  who  oppose 
enlarging  our  boundaries,  to  assert  that  territorial 


The  Memory  of  Thomas  Jefferson      ix 

acquirement  is  hostile  to  the  spirit  of  Washington's 
Farewell  Address  and  the  teachings  of  Jefferson. 
To  this  contention  a  moment  will  suffice.  It  may 
safely  be  urged  as  sound  doctrine,  that  no  man,  be 
he  ever  so  eminent,  advising  the  affairs  of  a  nation 
of  seven  millions,  can  speak  with  certainty  as  to 
what  would  be  an  advantageous  line  of  policy  seventy- 
five  years  later  for  a  people  of  seventy  millions.  A 
standing  army  larger  than  is  proportionate  to  the 
ordinary  requirements  of  the  government  is  always 
a  menace.  It  is  also,  for  police  purposes  and  the 
unexpected  emergencies  of  government,  a  necessity. 
Against  this  contingent  evil  and  the  inexpediency 
of  foreign  political  alliances,  Washington  chiefly 
inveighs.  But  if  I  read  aright  the  political  and 
governmental  teachings  of  Jefferson,  no  thought 
can  be  traced  home  to  his  maturer  years  that  did 
not  reflect  his  hope  and  expectation  that  the  United 
States  would  become  one  of  the  great  powers  of  the 
world. 

We  are  an  aggressive,  combative  people.  We 
assert  the  proposition  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  stock 
are  by  their  industry  and  indomitable  perseverance 
the  chosen  ones  to  sway  the  affairs  of  men.  The 
immortal  one  hundred  that  braved  the  terrors  of 
the  storm-tossed  Atlantic  in  the  name  of  liberty 
have  left  their  indelible  imprint  upon  us.  While 
the  Pilgrim  Fathers  adjured  high  Heaven  with  one 
hand  that  they  came  here  that  they  might  worship 
God  according  to  the  dictates  of  their  own  conscience, 


x      The  Memory  of  Thomas  Jefferson 

with  the  other  they  waged  relentless  and  ruthless 
war  upon  the  red  man. 

When  old  Massasoit,  with  his  painted  and  feath- 
ered warriors  squatted  in  the  Governor's  log  house 
and  smoked  the  pipe  of  peace,  sturdy  Standish  with 
his  musketeers  stood  ready  to  slay  and  kill.  Having 
won  their  own  independence  and  established  a  reli- 
gious belief  conformable  to  the  nations,  they  purpose 
to  tolerate  no  other.  The  harmless  Quaker  paid 
for  his  temerity  with  his  life.  Sprung  from  their 
loins  has  come  a  people  who  know  no  limitation  to 
the  march  of  trade.  The  fittest  shall  survive.  And 
until  the  ports  of  the  world  shall  recognize  our  flag 
as  the  embodiment  and  incarnation  of  liberty  and 
power,  the  spirit  of  dominion  will  never  down. 
Where  there  are  people  to  buy,  there  we  insist  shall 
the  American  wage-earner  have  a  market  to  sell. 
We  point  with  pride  to  the  fact  that  not  only  our 
shoes  compete  with  those  of  English  make  in  Picca- 
dilly, our  locomotives  propel  the  peoples  of  the  Sou- 
dan, but  our  navy  yards  are  building  the  battleships 
of  the  nations  of  the  Old  World.  To  maintain  wages 
at  a  rate  that  will  enable  our  men  of  toil  to  outstrip 
the  nations  of  the  world,  is  not  only  Democratic 
policy,  but  Jeffersonian  doctrine. 

The  war  of  1812  was  fought  to  protect  our  vessels 
upon  the  high  seas  against  the  right  of  impressment 
and  of  search.  In  it  our  little  wooden  navy  won 
the  proud  prestige  it  has  ever  since  sustained.  Deca- 
tur and  Lawrence  and  Perry  were  as  famous  in  the 


The  Memory  of  Thomas  Jefferson      xi 

days  of  1812  as  Dewey,  Sampson  and  Schley  in  the 
days  of  1898.  Monroe  gave  us  Florida  by  purchase 
in  days  of  peace,  and  the  Mexican  war,  waged  in  the 
forties,  acquired  for  us  our  far  western  territories, 
including  more  land  than  composed  the  United 
States  at  the  close  of  the  Revolution. 

Such  to  the  close  of  the  administration  of  Polk 
had  been  in  the  policy  of  Democratic  administrations, 
with  reference  to  territorial  extension.  True  to  the 
spirit  transmitted  to  us  from  the  Pilgrim  Fathers, 
we  fought  the  battle  of  the  slave,  and  drenched  the 
land  in  fraternal  blood.  What  American  has  for- 
gotten how  his  pulse  thrilled  with  pride  as  Bryant, 
the  poet  of  peace  and  flowers,  wrote  these  inspiring 
words — 

Lay  down  the  axe;   fling  by  the  spade; 

Leave  in  its  track  the  toiling  plow; 
The  rifle  and  the  bayonet  blade 

For  arms  like  yours  were  fitter  now ; 
And  let  the  hands  that  ply  the  pen 

Quit  the  light  task  and  learn  to  wield 
The  horseman's  crooked  brand,  and  rein 

The  charger  on  the  battlefield." 

Jefferson's  prophecy  had  to  be  fulfilled  and  the 
bondman  was  made  free!  The  war  with  Spain 
begun  in  the  name  of  humanity,  waged  to  redress 
the  wrongs  of  centuries,  inflicted  upon  a  people  at 
the  doorway  of  our  southern  gulf,  has  resulted  in 
the  glorious  triumph  of  civilization.  To  the  legiti- 
mate fruits  of  that  victory  we  are  entitled  by  law 
both  human  and  divine.     There  must  be  neither 


xii     The  Memory  of  Thomas  Jefferson 

hesitation  nor  faltering  until  those  lands  that  are 
of  right  a  part  of  our  Union  are  fastened  to  us  in 
bands  of  enduring  brass.  Two  results  have  come 
to  us  from  this  war.  First,  the  cruel  and  inhuman 
government  of  Spain  has  been  destroyed  upon  this 
hemisphere.  Second,  the  last  vestige  of  sectional 
prejudice  has  passed  away.  The  man  of  the  North 
with  his  brother  of  the  South  have  joined  in  the 
conflict,  and  together  have  won  the  victory.  In  a 
century  our  history  has  been  one  of  growth  in  people, 
wealth  and  territory.  Why  tarry  we  here?  Is  not 
the  duty  superimposed  upon  us  to  protect  the  weak 
and  the  oppressed  in  any  land  or  clime?  Wherever 
the  torch  of  civilization  is  fired,  there  does  liberty 
accompanied  by  Christianity  blossom  and  flower. 

"Thus  too  sail  on,  O  ship  of  state! 
Sail  on,  O  Union  strong  and  great! 
Humanity,  with  all  its  fears, 
With  all  the  hope  of  future  years, 
Is  hanging  breathless  on  thy  fate!" 

Would  that  we  could  invoke  the  spirit  of  Jefferson 
in  our  hour  of  need!  The  bruised  and  battered 
doctrine  of  home  rule  needs  a  new  champion!  In 
the  unwritten  future  the  teachings  of  his  life  demon- 
strate that  he  would  take  up  for  us  as  the  slogan 
of  battle:  Down  with  the  trusts  and  up  with  an 
honest  and  fair  system  of  taxation!  The  greatest 
good  of  the  greatest  number  is  the  ideal  of  govern- 
ment toward  which  with  unclouded  vision  the 
Democracy  must  ever  trend! 


The  Memory  of  Thomas  Jefferson    xiii 

With  the  never  ending  roll  of  years  among  pos- 
terities yet  unborn,  shining  with  constantly  increased 
radiance  and  brilliancy,  the  reputation  of  Jefferson 
will  enhance  as  the  great  exponent  of  popular  gov- 
ernment and  the  honest  and  sincere  champion  of 
the  rights  of  the  common  people,  until  among  the 
nation's  honored  dead  his  name  and  memory,  far 
above  his  fellows,  will  forever  be  cherished  and 
revered  by  lovers  of  liberty  and  friends  of  humanity. 


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The  Richmond  Capitol  Jefferson 

Reproduced  from  the  Bronze  Statue  on  the  Washington  Monument  at  Richmond,  Va., 

the  work  of  two  sculptors,  Thomas  Crawford 

and  Randolph  Rogers. 

This  statue  of  Jefferson  is  a  companion  effigy  with  Henry,  Nelson,  Marshall, 
Lewis  and  Mason — the  six  celebrated  Virginians  surrounding  the  equestrian  statue 
of  Washington  in  the  Capitol  Square,  Richmond,  Va.  The  base  of  the  monument 
is  star-shaped  and  of  native  granite.  It  took  nearly  twenty  years  to  complete  the 
work  ;  begun  by  Crawford  in  1849  and  finished  by  Rogers  in  1868.  The  monument 
cost  upwards  of  $260,000. 


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CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

The  Memory  of  Thomas  Jefferson.     By  Hon.  John 

B.   Stanchfield i 

Letters    Written    After    His    Return    to    the 

United    States,    1789-1826 1-493 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  November  15, 

1813 1 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  December  3, 

1813 14 

To  Baron  Alexander  Von  Humboldt,  December  6, 

1813 20 

To  Madame  de  Tesse,  December  8,  1813 25 

To  Don  Valentin  de  Foronda  Coruna,  December 

14    1813 30 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  December  25, 

1813 33 

To  Thomas  Leiper,  January  1,  1814 41 

To  Dr.  Walter  Jones,  January  2,  1814 46 

To  John  Pintard,  January  9,  1814 53 

To  Samuel  M.  Burnside,  Secretary  of  the  Ameri- 
can Antiquarian  Society,  January  9,  18 14....  53 

To  Dr.  Thomas  Cooper,  January  16,  1814 54 

To  Oliver  Evans,  January  16,  1814 63 

To  Joseph  C.  Cabell,  January  17,  1814 67 

To  R.  M.  Patterson,  January  20,  1814. 70 

To  John  Adams,  January  24,  1814 71 

To  John  Clarke,  January  27,   1814 79 

To  Samuel  Greenhow,  January  31,  1814 81 

To  Joseph  C.  Cabell,  January  31,   1814 82 

To  Dr.  Thomas  Cooper,  February  10,   18 14....  85 


xvi,  Contents 

Letters    Written    After    His    Return    to    the 

United  States,   i 789-1826 — Continued.  pagb 

To  Dr.  John  Manners,  February  22,  18 14 97 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  February,  1814  104 

To  Gideon  Granger,  March  9,  1814 in 

To  Horatio  G.  Spafford,  March  17,  1814 118 

To  L.  H.  Girardin,  March  18,  1814 121 

To  Monsieur  N.  G.  Dufief,  April  19,  1814......  126 

To  Chevalier  Luis  De  Onis,  April  28,  1814  ....  129 

To  Joseph  Delaplaine,  May  3,  18 14 131 

To  John  F.  Watson,  May  17,  1814 134 

To  Abraham  Small,  May  20,   1814 136 

To  Thomas  Law,  June   13,   1814 138 

To  John  Adams,  July  5,   18 14 144 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  July  16,  18 14.  .  152 

To  Baron  de  Moll,  July  31,  1814 161 

To  William  Wirt,  August  14,  1814 162 

To  Dr.  Thomas  Cooper,  August  25,   1814 173 

To  Joseph  Delaplaine,  August  28,  1814 175 

To  Dr.  Thomas  Cooper,  September  10,  1814.  . . .  179 

To  Samuel  H.  Smith,  September  21,  1814 190 

To  the   President   of  the   United   States    (James 

Madison),  September  24,  181.4.'.  •  •  •' x94 

To  Miles  King,  September  26,  1814 196 

To  Joseph  C    Cabell,  September  30,  1814 199 

To  Thomas  Cooper,  October  7,   1814 199 

To  James  Madison,  October  15,  18 14 202 

To  James  Monroe,  October   16,   1814 207 

To  Doctor  Robert  Patterson,  November  23,  18 14  209 

To  Robert  M.   Patterson,  November  23,   181 4..  210 

To  William  Short,  November  28,   1814. , ........  211 

To  John   Melish,   December   10,    1814. 219 

To  Monsieur  Correa  de  Serra,  December  27,  18 14  221 

To  James  Monroe,  January  1,  1815 *'%«*« 4  .  226 

To  L,  H.  Girardin,  January  15,  1815  . >.  231 


Contents  xvii 

J.etters    Written    After    His    Return    to    the 

United  States,   1789-18 26 — Continued.  pagb 

To  Charles  Clay,  January  29,  1815 232 

To  Governor  William  Plumer,  January  31,  181 5.  235 

To  John  Vaughan,   February  5,   1815 239 

To  William  H.  Crawford,  February  11,  1815.  . . .  240 

To  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette,  February  14,  1815  245 
To  Monsieur   Dupont  de  Nemours,  February  28, 

1815 255 

To  Jean  Batiste  Say,  March  2,   1815 258 

To  Francis  C.  Gray,  March  4,  1815 267 

To  L.  H.  Girardin,  March  12,  1815 271 

To  P.  H.  Wendover,  March  13,  1815 279 

To  Caesar  A.   Rodney,  March   16,   1815 284 

To  General  Henry  Dearborn,  March  17,  1815...  287 
To  the   President   of  the   United   States    (James 

Madison),  March  23,  181 5 290 

To  L.  H.  Girardin,  March  27,  1815. 294 

To  David   Barrow,   May   1,    18 15 296 

To  Monsieur  Dupont  de  Nemours,  May  15,1815.  297 

To  John  Adams,   June   10,    1815 299 

To  W.  H.  Torrance,  June  11,  18 15 302 

To  Thomas  Leiper,  June   12,    1815 306 

To  James  Maury,  June   15,   1815 311 

To  James  Maury,  June  16,  1815 315 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  June  20,  1815.  320 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  June  22,  1815.  322 

To  Monsieur  Correa  de  Serra,  June  28,  1 815  ... .  330 
To  Madame  La  Baronne  De  Stael-Holstein,  July 

3>   1815    331 

To  Andrew  C.  Mitchell,  July  16,  1815 334 

To  William   Wirt,   August   5,    1815 335 

To  John  Adams,   August    10,    181 5 342 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  August  24,1815  346 

To  Judge  Spencer  Roane,  October  12,  1815....  349 


xviii  Contents 

Letters    Written    After    His     Return    to    the 

United  States,   i 789-1826 — Continued.  page 

To  Capt.  A.   Partridge,   October   12,   1815 352 

To  Dr.  George  Logan,  October  15,  1815 354 

To  Albert  Gallatin,  October  16,   1815 355 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  November  13, 

1815 359 

To  William   Bentley,    December   28,    1815 363 

To  George  Fleming,  December  29,  1815 365 

To  Monsieur  Dupont  de  Nemours,  December  31, 

1815 369 

To  Captain  A.   Partridge,  January  2,   1816 374 

To  Colonel  Charles  Yancey,  January  6,  1816....  379 

To  Charles  Thompson,  January  9,   1816 385 

To  Benjamin   Austin,   January   9,    1816 387 

To  John  Adams,  January  11,   1816 393 

To  Dabney  Carr,  January  19,  1816 398 

To  Dr.  Peter  Wilson,  January  20,  1816 401 

To  Amos  J.   Cook,  January   21,    1816 403 

To  Thomas   Ritchie,   January   21,    1816 406 

To  Nathaniel  Macon,  January  22,   1816 408 

To  Joseph  C.  Cabell,  January  24,   18 16 412 

To  Rev.  Noah  Worcester,  January  29,  1816.  .  .  .  414 

To  Joseph  C.   Cabell,  February  2,   1816 .  417 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  February  2,  1816  423 

To  Thomas  W.  Maury,  February  3,   1816 428 

To  James  Monroe,   February  4,   1816 430 

To  Benjamin  Austin,  February  9,   1816 435 

John  Adams  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  March  2,  1816.  437 

To  ,    March    13,    1816 442 

To  Governor  Wilson  C.  Nicholas,  April  2,  1816.  .  446 

To  Joseph   Milligan,   April   6,    1816 456 

To  John  Adams,  April  8,  1816 .  .  466 

To  Governor  Wilson  C.  Nicholas,  April  19,  1816.  471 

To  Monsieur  Dupont  de  Nemours,  April  24,  18 16  487 


New  Jersey  Signers 

{Declaration  of  Independence) 

The  Reproductions  are  from  the  Original  Paintings  in  Independence  Hall, 

Philadelphia. 

John  Hart  (1708-1780)  was  born  at  Hopewell,  N.  J.  He  was 
a  plain  farmer  with  an  ordinary  education,  but  always  held  in  the  high- 
est esteem  by  his  fellow-men  and  known,  generally,  as  "honest  John 
Hart."  For  many  years  prior  to  the  Revolution  he  was  a  member  of  the 
Colonial  Legislature  of  New  Jersey.  From  1774  to  1777  he  was  a  delegate 
to  the  Continental  Congress.  He  suffered  much  at  the  hands  of  the 
loyalists,  and  was  compelled  to  flee  from  his  home  and  wander  over  the 
land  to  escape  these  enemies.  Although  he  did  not  live  to  see  the  end  of 
the  war  and  independence  established,  he  lived  long  enough  to  be  assured 
of  his  country's  strength  and  bright  promise.  (Reproduced  from  the 
Original  Painting  by  Deigendisch.) 

Francis  Hopkinson  (1737-1791)  was  born  at  Philadelphia,  Pa. 
While  early  in  his  twenties  he  was  selected  secretary  of  a  conference 
between  the  Government  and  the  Indians.  He  was  admitted  to  the  Bar  in 
1765,  and  elected  a  delegate  to  the  Continental  Congress  in  1776.  For 
Pennsylvania  he  was  Judge  of  Admiralty,  1779-1789,  and  United  States 
District  Judge  from  1790  to  the  time  of  his  death.  He  was  an  able  writer 
and  directed  his  satirical  pen  with  telling  effect  against  the  opponents  of 
the  Federal  Constitution.  He  wrote  many  essays  and  ballads  of  delightful 
humor  and  literary  finish,  such  as  "  The  Battle  of  the  Kegs  "  and  "  Essay 
on  the  Properties  of  a  Salt  Box."  {Reproduced  from  the  Original 
Painting  by  Charles  Wilson  Peale.) 

John  Witherspoon  (1722-1794)  was  born  at  Yester,  Scotland. 
He  was  educated  at  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  and  became  a  preacher 
at  twenty-one.  While  ministering  to  the  people  of  Paisley,  in  1767,  he 
received  a  call  from  America  to  come  to  Princeton  College  as  its  president. 
He  accepted  the  call,  and  was  inaugurated  the  next  year.  He  improved 
the  financial  condition  and  raised  the  reputation  of  the  institution.  The 
College  was  closed  on  the  opening  of  the  war  and  he  was  sent  to  the  New 
Jersey  convention  for  framing  a  State  Constitution.  He  was  delegated  in 
1776  to  the  General  Congress  at  Philadelphia,  and  served  there  for  six  years 
and  was  appointed  on  many  important  committees.  His  writings  were 
collected  and  published  after  his  death.  {Reproduced  from  the  Original 
Painting  by  Charles  Wilson  Peale.) 

Abraham  Clark  (1726-1794)  was  born  at  Elizabethtown,  N.  J. 
He  was  brought  up  as  a  farmer,  but  devoted  most  of  his  time  to  the  study 
of  mathematics  and  law.  He  held  the  position  of  High  Sheriff  and  Clerk  of 
the  Assembly  in  the  county  of  Essex.  He  served  on  the  Committee  of 
Public  Safety,  and  with  few  intermissions  was  a  delegate  to  Congress  from 
1776  until  1783.  He  was  in.  the  State  Legislature  from  1782  to  1784  and 
after  that  was  in  Congress  from  1788  up  to  the  year  of  his  death.  (Repro- 
duced from  the  Painting  by  Lambdin  after  the  Original  Painting 
by  John  Trumbull.)  f 

Richard  Stockton  (1730-1781)  was  born  at  Princeton,  N.  J. 
He  was  graduated  from  the  New  Jersey  College  in  1748  and  began  study- 
ing law.  He  was  admitted  to  the  Bar  in  1754  ;  became  a  member  of  the 
New  Jersey  Executive  Council  in  1768,  and  six  years  later  he^was  appointed 
a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  that  State.  In  1776  he  was  elected  a 
delegate  to  the  Continental  Congress.  He  was  on  the  committee  sent  to 
inspect  the  Northern  Army  under  General  Schuyler.  Soon  after  he  was 
captured  by  a  band  of  royalists  and  thrown  into  prison;  the  treatment  he 
received  at  their  hands  laid  the  foundation  for  the  disease  that  resulted  in 
his  death.     (Reproduced  from  the  Original  Painting.) 


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ABRA.    CLARK 


RICHARD    STOCKTON 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


FACING  PAGE 


The  Richmond  Capitol  Jefferson xiv 

Reproduced  from  the  Bronze  Statue  in  the  Washington 
Group  Monument  at  Richmond,  Va.,  by  Thomas  Craw- 
ford and  Randolph  Rogers. 

New  Jersey  Signers xviii 

Reproduced  from  the  Original  Paintings  in  Independence 
Hall,  Philadelphia. 

Exterior  of  Independence  Hall 298 

Reproduced  from  an  Old  Engraving. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 


LETTERS  WRITTEN  AFTER  HIS  RETURN 
TO  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

1789-1826. 

(CONTINUED.) 


JEFFERSON'S  WORKS. 


LETTERS  WRITTEN  AFTER  HIS  RETURN 
TO  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

1789-1826. 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO   THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  November  15,   18 13. 

Dear  Sir, — I  cannot  appease  my  melancholy  com- 
miseration for  our  armies  in  this  furious  snow  storm, 
in  any  way  so  well  as  by  studying  your  letter  of  Octo- 
ber 28. 

We  are  now  explicitly  agreed  upon  one  important 
point,  viz.,  that  there  is  a  natural  aristocracy  among 
men,  the  grounds  of  which  are  virtue  and  talents. 
You  very  justly  indulge  a  little  merriment  upon  this 
solemn  subject  of  aristocracy.  I  often  laugh  at  it  too, 
for  there  is  nothing  in  this  laughable  world  more 
ridiculous  than  the  management  of  it  by  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth;  but  while  we  smile,  mankind 
have  reason  to  say  to  us,  as  the  frogs  said  to  the  boys, 
what  is  sport  to  you,  are  wounds  and  death  to  us. 
When  I  consider  the  weakness,  the  folly,  the  pride, 

VOL.   XIV — I 


2  Jefferson's  Works 

the  vanity,  the  selfishness,  the  artifice,  the  low  craft 
and  mean  cunning,  the  want  of  principle,  the  avarice, 
the  unbounded  ambition,  the  unfeeling  cruelty  of  a 
majority  of  those  (in  all  nations)  who  are  allowed 
an  aristocratical  influence,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  stupidity  with  which  the  more  numerous  multi- 
tude not  only  become  their  dupes,  but  even  love  to 
be  taken  in  by  their  tricks,  I  feel  a  stronger  disposi- 
tion to  weep  at  their  destiny,  than  to  laugh  at  their 
folly.  But  though  we  have  agreed  in  one  point,  in 
words,  it  is  not  yet  certain  that  we  are  perfectly 
agreed  in  sense.  Fashion  has  introduced  an  inde- 
terminate use  of  the  word  talents.  Education, 
wealth,  strength,  beauty,  stature,  birth,  marriage, 
graceful  attitudes  and  motions,  gait,  air,  complexion, 
physiognomy,  are  talents,  as  well  as  genius,  science, 
and  learning.  Any  one  of  these  talents  that  in  fact 
commands  or  influences  two  votes  in  society,  gives 
to  the  man  who  possesses  it  the  character  of  an  aris- 
tocrat, in  my  sense  of  the  word.  Pick  up  the  first 
hundred  men  you  meet,  and  make  a  republic.  Every 
man  will  have  an  equal  vote;  but  when  deliberations 
and  discussions  are  opened,  it  will  be  found  that 
twenty-five,  by  their  talents,  virtues  being  equal, 
will  be  able  to  carry  fifty  votes.  Every  one  of  these 
twenty-five  is  an  aristocrat  in  my  sense  of  the  word; 
whether  he  obtains  his  one  vote  in  addition  to  his 
own,  by  his  birth,  fortune,  figure,  eloquence,  science, 
learning,  craft,  cunning,  or  even  his  character  for 
good  fellowship,  and  a  ban  vitxmt. 


Correspondence  3 

What  gave  Sir  William  Wallace  his  amazing  aris- 
tocratical  superiority?  His  strength.  What  gave 
Mrs.  Clark  her  aristocratical  influence — to  create 
generals,  admirals,  and  bishops?  Her  beauty.  What 
gave  Pompadour  and  Du  Barry  the  power  of  making 
cardinals  and  popes?  And  I  have  lived  for  years  in 
the  Hotel  de  Valentinois,  with  Franklin,  who  had  as 
many  virtues  as  any  of  them.  In  the  investigation 
of  the  meaning  of  the  word  u  talents,"  I  could  write 
630  pages  as  pertinent  as  John  Taylor's,  of  Hazle- 
wood ;  but  I  will  select  a  single  example ;  for  female 
aristocrats  are  nearly  as  formidable  as  males.  A 
daughter  of  a  greengrocer  walks  the  streets  in  Lon- 
don daily,  with  a  basket  of  cabbage  sprouts,  dande- 
lions, and  spinach,  on  her  head.  She  is  observed  by 
the  painters  to  have  a  beautiful  face,  an  elegant 
figure,  a  graceful  step,  and  a  debonair.  They  hire 
her  to  sit.  She  complies,  and  is  painted  by  forty 
artists  in  a  circle  around  her.  The  scientific  Dr. 
William  Hamilton  outbids  the  painters,  sends  her  to 
school  for  a  genteel  education,  and  marries  her.  This 
lady  not  only  causes  the  triumphs  of  the  Nile,  Copen- 
hagen, and  Trafalgar,  but  separates  Naples  from 
France,  and  finally  banishes  the  king  and  queen  from 
Sicily.  Such  is  the  aristocracy  of  the  natural  talent 
of  beauty.  Millions  of  examples  might  be  quoted 
from  history,  sacred  and  profane,  from  Eve,  Hannah, 
Deborah,  Susanna,  Abigail,  Judith,  Ruth,  down  to 
Helen,  Mrs.  de  Mainbenor,  and  Mrs.  Fitzherbert. 
For  mercy's  sake  do  not  compel  me  to  look  to  our 


4  Jefferson's  Works 

chaste  States  and  territories  to  find  women,  one  of 
whom  let  go  would. in  the  words  of  Holopherne's 
guards,  deceive  the  whole  earth. 

The  proverbs  of  Theognis,  like  those  of  Solomon, 
are  observations  on  human  nature,  ordinary  life,  and 
civil  society,  with  moral  reflections  on  the  facts.  I 
quoted  him  as  a  witness  of  the  fact,  that  there  was 
as  much  difference  in  the  races  of  men  as  in  the 
breeds  of  sheep,  and  as  a  sharp  reprover  and  cen- 
surer  of  the  sordid,  mercenary  practice  of  disgracing 
birth  by  preferring  gold  to  it.  Surely  no  authority 
can  be  more  expressly  in  point  to  prove  the  existence 
of  inequalities,  not  of  rights,  but  of  moral,  intellec- 
tual, and  physical  inequalities  in  families,  descents 
and  generations.  If  a  descent  from  pious,  virtuous, 
wealthy,  literary,  or  scientific  ancestors,  is  a  letter  of 
recommendation,  or  introduction  in  a  man's  favor, 
and  enables  him  to  influence  only  one  vote  in  addi- 
tion to  his  own,  he  is  an  aristocrat;  for  a  democrat 
can  have  but  one  vote.  Aaron  Burr  has  100,000 
votes  from  the  single  circumstance  of  his  descent 
from  President  Burr  and  President  Edwards. 

Your  commentary  on  the  proverbs  of  Theognis, 
reminded  me  of  two  solemn  characters;  the  one 
resembling  John  Bunyan,  the  other  Scarron.  The 
one  John  Torrey,  the  other  Ben  Franklin.  Torrey, 
a  poet,  an  enthusiast,  a  superstitious  bigot,  once  very 
gravely  asked  my  brother,  whether  it  would  not  be 
better  for  mankind  if  children  were  always  begotten 
by  religious  motives  only?    Would, not  religion  in 


Correspondence  5 

this  sad  case  have  as  little  efficacy  in  encouraging 
procreation,  as  it  has  now  in  discouraging  it?  I 
should  apprehend  a  decrease  of  population,  even  in 
our  country  where  it  increases  so  rapidly. 

In  1775,  Franklin  made  a  morning  visit  at  Mrs. 
Yard's,  to  Sam  Adams  and  John.  He  was  unusually 
loquacious.  "  Man,  a  rational  creature ! ' '  said  Frank- 
lin. "  Come,  let  us  suppose  a  rational  man.  Strip 
him  of  all  his  appetites,  especially  his  hunger  and 
thirst.  He  is  in  his  chamber,  engaged  in  making 
experiments,  or  in  pursuing  some  problem.  He  is 
highly  entertained.  At  this  moment  a  servant 
knocks.  'Sir,  dinner  is  on  the  table.'  'Dinner! 
pox!  pough!  but  what  have  you  for  dinner?'  'Ham 
and  chickens.'  'Ham!  and  must  I  break  the  chain 
of  my  thoughts  to  go  down  and  gnaw  a  morsel  of 
damned  hog's  arse?  Put  aside  your  ham;  I  will 
dine  to-morrow.'  "  Take  away  appetite,  and  the 
present  generation  would  not  live  a  month,  and  no 
future  generation  would  ever  exist;  and  thus  the 
exalted  dignity  of  human  nature  would  be  annihi- 
lated and  lost,  and  in  my  opinion  the  whole  loss 
would  be  of  no  more  importance  than  putting  out  a 
candle,  quenching  a  torch,  or  crushing  a  firefly,  if  in 
this  world  we  only  have  hope.  Your  distinction 
between  natural  and  artificial  aristocracy,  does  not 
appear  to  me  founded.  Birth  and  wealth  are  con- 
ferred upon  some  men  as  imperiously  by  nature  as 
genius,  strength,  or  beauty.  The  heir  to  honors,  and 
riches,  and  power,  has  often  no  more  merit  in  pro- 


6  Jefferson's  Works 

curing  these  advantages,  than  he  has  in  obtaining 
a  handsome  face,  or  an  elegant  figure.  When  aris- 
tocracies are  established  by  fiuman  laws,  and  honor, 
wealth  and  power  are  made  hereditary  by  municipal 
laws  and  political  institutions,  then  I  acknowledge 
artificial  aristocracy  to  commence;  but  this  never 
commences  till  corruption  in  elections  become  domi- 
nant and  uncontrollable.  But  this  artificial  aris- 
tocracy can  never  last.  The  everlasting  envies, 
jealousies,  rivalries,  and  quarrels  among  them;  their 
cruel  rapacity  upon  the  poor  ignorant  people,  their 
followers,  compel  them  to  set  up  Caesar,  a  demagogue, 
to  be  a  monarch,  a  master;  pour  mettre  chacun  a  sa 
place.  Here  you  have  the  origin  of  all  artificial  aris- 
tocracy, which  is  the  origin  of  all  monarchies.  And 
both  artificial  aristocracy  and  monarchy,  and  civil, 
military,  .political,  and  hierarchical  despotism,  have 
all  grown  out  of  the  natural  aristocracy  of  virtues  and 
talents.  We,  to  be  sure,  are  far  remote  from  this. 
Many  hundred  years  must  roll  away  before  we  shall 
be  corrupted.  Our  pure,  virtuous,  public-spirited, 
federative  republic  will  last  forever,  govern  the  globe, 
and  introduce  the  perfection  of  man;  his  perfecti- 
bility being  already  proved  by  Price,  Priestley,  Con- 
dorcet,  Rousseau,  Diderot,  and  Godwin.  Mischief 
has  been  done  by  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  I 
have  known  and  felt  more  of  this  mischief,  than 
Washington,  Jefferson,  and  Madison,  all  together. 
But  this  has  been  all  caused  by  the  constitutional 
power  of  the  Senate,  in  executive  business,  which 


Correspondence  7 

ought  to  be  immediately,  totally,  and  essentially 
abolished.  Your  distinction  between  the  aPl<ttol 
and  if/evSa  apiorroi,  will  not  help  the  matter.  I 
would  trust  one  as  well  as  the  other  with  unlimited 
power.  The  law  wisely  refuses  an  oath  as  a  witness 
in  his  own  case,  to  the  saint  as  well  as  the  sinner. 
No  romance  would  be  more  amusing  than  the  history 
of  your  Virginian  and  our  New  England  aristocratical 
families.  Yet  even  in  Rhode  Island  there  has  been 
no  clergy,  no  church,  and  I  had  almost  said  no  State, 
and  some  people  say  no  religion.  There  has  been  a 
constant  respect  for  certain  old  families.  Fifty- 
seven  or  fifty-eight  years  ago,  in  company  with 
Colonel,  Counsellor,  Judge,  John  Chandler,  whom  I 
have  quoted  before,  a  newspaper  was  brought  in. 
The  old  sage  asked  me  to  look  for  the  news  from 
Rhode  Island,  and  see  how  the  elections  had  gone 
there.  I  read  the  list  of  Wanbous,  Watrous,  Greens, 
Whipples,  Malboues,  etc.  "I  expected  as  much," 
said  the  aged  gentleman,  "for  I  have  always  been 
of  opinion  that  in  the  most  popular  governments, 
the  elections  will  generally  go  in  favor  of  the  most 
ancient  families."  To  this  day,  when  any  of  these 
tribes — and  we  may  add  Ellerys,  Channings,  Cham- 
plins,  etc., — are  pleased  to  fall  in  with  the  popular 
current,  they  are  sure  to  carry  all  before  them. 

You  suppose  a  difference  of  opinion  between  you 
and  me  on  the  subject  of  aristocracy.  I  can  find 
none.  I  dislike  and  detest  hereditary  honors,  offices, 
emoluments,  established  by  law.     So  do  you.     I  am 


8  Jefferson's  Works 

for  excluding  legal,  hereditary  distinctions  from  the 
United  States  as  long  as  possible.  So  are  you.  I 
only  say  that  mankind  have  not  yet  discovered  any 
remedy  against  irresistible  corruption  in  elections 
to  offices  of  great  power  and  profit,  but  making  them 
hereditary. 

But  will  you  say  our  elections  are  pure?  Be  it  so, 
upon  the  whole;  but  do  you  recollect  in  history  a 
more  corrupt  election  than  that  of  Aaron  Burr  to  be 
President,  or  that  of  De  Witt  Clinton  last  year?  By 
corruption  here,  I  mean  a  sacrifice  of  every  national 
interest  and  honor  to  private  and  party  objects.  I 
see  the  same  spirit  in  Virginia  that  you  and  I  see  in 
Rhode  Island  and  the  rest  of  New  England.  In  New 
York  it  is  a  struggle  of  family  feuds — a  feudal. aris- 
tocracy. Pennsylvania  is  a  contest  between  Ger- 
man, Irish  and  Old  England  families.  When  Ger- 
mans and  Irish  unite  they  give  30,000  majorities. 
There  is  virtually  a  white  rose  and  a  red  rose,  a  Caesar 
and  a  Pompey,  in  every  State  in  this  Union,  and  con- 
tests and  dissensions  will  be  as  lasting.  The  rivalry 
of  Bourbons  and  Noailleses  produced  the  French 
Revolution,  and  a  similar  competition  for  considera- 
tion and  influence  exists  and  prevails  in  every  village 
in  the  world.  Where  will  terminate  the  rabies  agrif 
The  continent  will  be  scattered  over  with  manors 
much  larger  than  Livingston's,  Van  Rensselaer's 
or  Philips 's;  even  our  Deacon  Strong  will  have  a 
principality  among  you  southern  folk.  What  in- 
equality of  talents  will  be  produced  by  these  land 


Correspondence  9 

jobbers.  Where  tends  the  mania  of  banks?  At  my 
table  in  Philadelphia,  I  once  proposed  to  you  to  unite 
in  endeavors  to  obtain  an  amendment  of  the  Consti- 
tution prohibiting  to  the  separate  States  the  power 
of  creating  banks;  but  giving  Congress  authority 
to  establish  one  bank  with  a  branch  in  each  State, 
the  whole  limited  to  ten  millions  of  dollars.  Whether 
this  project  was  wise  or  unwise,  I  know  not,  for  I  had 
deliberated  little  on  it  then,  and  have  never  thought 
it  worth  thinking  of  since.  But  you  spurned  the 
proposition  from  you  with  disdain.  This  system 
of  banks,  begotten,  brooded  and  hatched  by  Duer, 
Robert  and  Gouverneur  Morris,  Hamilton  and  Wash- 
ington, I  have  always  considered  as  a  system  of 
national  injustice.  A  sacrifice  of  public  and  private 
interest  to  a  few  aristocratical  friends  and  favorites. 
My  scheme  could  have  had  no  such  effect.  Verres 
plundered  temples,  and  robbed  a  few  rich  men,  but 
he  never  made  such  ravages  among  private  property 
in  general,  nor  swindled  so  much  out  of  the  pockets 
of  the  poor,  and  middle  class  of  people,  as  these  banks 
have  done.  No  people  but  this  would  have  borne 
the  imposition  so  long.  The  people  of  Ireland  would 
not  bear  Wood's  halfpence.  What  inequalities  of 
talent  have  been  introduced  into  this  country  by 
these  aristocratical  banks!  Our  Winthrops,  Wins- 
lows,  Bradfords,  Saltonstalls,  Quinceys,  Chandlers, 
Leonards,  Hutchinsons,  Olivers,  Sewalls,  etc.,  are 
precisely  in  the  situation  of  your  Randolphs,  Carters, 
and  Burwells,  and  Harrisons.     Some  of  them  uti- 


io  Jefferson's  Works 

popular  for  the  part  they  took  in  the  late  Revolution, 
but  all  respected  for  their  names  and  connections; 
and  whenever  they  fell  in  with  the  popular  senti- 
ments are  preferred,  ceteris  paribus,  to  all  others. 
When  I  was  young  the  summum  bonum  in  Massachu- 
setts was  to  be  worth  £10,000  sterling,  ride  in  a 
chariot,  be  colonel  of  a  regiment  of  militia,  and  hold 
a  seat  in  his  Majesty's  council.  No  man's  imagina- 
tion aspired  to  anything  higher  beneath  the  skies. 
But  these  plumbs,  chariots,  colonelships,  and  coun- 
sellorships,  are  recorded  and  will  never  be  forgotten. 
No  great  accumulations  of  land  were  made  by  our 
early  settlers.  Mr.  Baudoin,  a  French  refugee,  made 
the  first  great  purchases,  and  your  General  Dearborn, 
born  under  a  fortunate  star,  is  now  enjoying  a  large 
portion  of  the  aristocratical  sweets  of  them.  As  I 
have  no  amanuenses  but  females,  and  there  is  so 
much  about  generation  in  this  letter  that  I  dare  not 
ask  any  of  them  to  copy  it,  and  I  cannot  copy  it 
myself,  I  must  beg  of  you  to  return  it  to  me.  Your 
old  friend. 


TO  A.  C.  U.  C.  DESTUTT  DE  TRACY. 

November  28,   18 13. 

I  will  not  fatigue  you,  my  dear  Sir,  with  long  and 
labored  excuses  for  having  been  so  tardy  in  writing 
to  you;  but  I  will  briefly  mention  that  the  thousand 
hostile  ships  which  cover  the  ocean  render  attempts 
to  pass  it  now  very  unfrequent,  and  these  concealing 


Correspondence  1 1 

their  intentions  from  all,  that  they  may  not  be  known 
to  the  enemy,  are  gone  before  heard  of  in  such  inland 
situations  as  mine.  To  this,  truth  must  add  the 
torpidity  of  age  as  one  of  the  obstacles  to  punctual 
correspondence . 

Your  letters  of  October  21  and  November  15,  181 1, 
and  August  29,  1813,  were  duly  received,  and  with 
that  of  November  1 5  came  the  MS.  copy  of  your  work 
on  Economy.  The  extraordinary  merit  of  the  former 
volume  had  led  me  to  anticipate  great  satisfaction 
and  edification  from  the  perusal  of  this,  and  I  can  say 
with  truth  and  sincerity  that  these  expectations  were 
completely  fulfilled,  new  principles  developed,  former 
ones  corrected,  or  rendered  more  perspicuous,  present 
us  an  interesting  science,  heretofore  voluminous  and 
embarrassed,  now  happily  simplified  and  brought 
within  a  very  moderate  compass.  After  an  attentive 
perusal,  which  enabled  me  to  bear  testimony  to  its 
worth,  I  took  measures  for  getting  it  translated  and 
printed  in  Philadelphia;  the  distance  from  which 
place  prepared  me  to  expect  great  and  unavoidable 
delays.  But  notwithstanding  my  continual  urgen- 
cies these  have  gone  far  beyond  my  calculations.  In 
a  letter  of  September  26th  from  the  editor,  in  answer 
to  one  of  mine,  after  urging  in  excuse  the  causes  of 
the  delay,  he  expresses  his  confidence  that  it  would 
be  ready  by  the  last  of  October,  and  that  period  being 
now  past,  I  am  in  daily  expectation  of  hearing  from 
him.  As  I  write  the  present  letter  without  knowing 
by  what  conveyance  it  may  go,  I  am  not  without  a 


i2  Jefferson's  Works 

hope  of  receiving  a  copy  of  the  work  in  time  to  accom- 
pany this.  I  shall  then  be  anxious  to  learn  that 
better  health  and  more  encouraging  circumstances 
enable  you  to  pursue  your  plan  through  the  two 
remaining  branches  of  morals  and  legislation,  which 
executed  in  the  same  lucid,  logical  and  condensed 
style,  will  present  such  a  whole  as  the  age  we  live  in 
will  not  before  have  received.  Should  the  same 
motives  operate  for  their  first  publication  here,  I  am 
now  offered  such  means,  nearer  to  me,  as  promise  a 
more  encouraging  promptitude  in  the  execution. 
And  certainly  no  effort  should  be  spared  on  my  part 
to  ensure  to  the  world  such  an  acquisition.  The  MS. 
of  the  first  work  has  been  carefully  recalled  and  de- 
posited with  me.  That  of  the  second,  when  done 
with,  shall  be  equally  taken  care  of. 

If  unmerited  praise  could  give  pleasure  to  a  candid 
mind,  I  should  have  been  highly  exalted,  in  my  own 
opinion,  on  the  occasion  of  the  first  work.  One  of 
the  best  judges  and  best  men  of  the  age  has  ascribed 
it  to  myself;  and  has  for  some  time  been  employed 
in  translating  it  into  French.  It  would  be  a  gratifi- 
cation to  which  you  are  highly  entitled,  could  I  tran- 
scribe the  sheets  he  has  written  me  in  praise,  nay  in 
rapture  with  the  work ;  and  were  I  to  name  the  man, 
you  would  be  sensible  there  is  not  another  whose  suf- 
frage would  be  more  encouraging.  But  the  casual- 
ties which  lie  between  us  would  render  criminal  the 
naming  any  one.  In  a  letter  which  I  am  now  writing 
him,  I  shall  set  him  right  as  to  myself,  and  acknowl- 


Correspondence  *3 

edge  my  humble  station  far  below  the  qualifications 
necessary  for  that  work;  and  shall  discourage  his 
perseverance  in  retranslating  into  French  a  work  the 
original  of  which  is  so  correct  in  its  diction  that  not  a 
word  can  be  altered  but  for  the  worse;  and  from  a 
translation,  too,  where  the  author's  meaning  has 
sometimes  been  illy  understood,  sometimes  mistaken, 
and  often  expressed  in  words  not  the  best  chosen. 
Indeed,  when  the  work,  through  its  translation, 
becomes  more  generally  known  here,  the  high  esti- 
mation in  which  it  is  held  by  all  who  become  ac- 
quainted with  it,  encourages  me  to  hope  I  may  get 
it  printed  in  the  original.  I  sent  a  copy  of  it  to  the 
late  President  of  William  and  Mary  College  of  this 
State,  who  adopted  it  at  once  as  the  elementary  book 
of  that  institution.  From  these  beginnings  it  will 
spread  and  become  a  political  gospel  for  a  nation 
open  to  reason,  and  in  a  situation  to  adopt  and  profit 
'by  its  results,  without  a  fear  of  their  leading  to  wrong. 
I  sincerely  wish  you  all  the  health,  comfort  and 
leisure  necessary  to  dispose  and  enable  you  to  per- 
severe in  employing  yourself  so  useful  for  present  and 
future  times,  and  I  pray  you  to  be  assured  you  have 
not  a  more  grateful  votary  for  your  benefactions  to 
mankind,  nor  one  of  higher  sentiments  of  esteem  and 
affectionate  respect. 


i4  Jefferson's  Works 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  December  3,  1813. 

Dear  Sir, — The  proverbs  of  the  old  Greek  poets 
are  as  short  and  pithy  as  any  of  Solomon  or  Frank- 
lin.        Hesiod     has      Several.         His     KBavar<sg-    /ikv    Trpwra 

Oe^g-  vofjiu)  (og-  SiaTreirai  nim.  Honor  the  gods  estab- 
lished by  law.  I  know  not  how  we  can  escape 
martyrdom  without  a  discreet  attention  to  this 
precept.  You  have  suffered,  and  I  have  suffered 
more  than  you,  for  want  of  a  strict  observance  of 
this  rule. 

There  is  another  oracle  of  this  Hesiod,  which 
requires  a  kind  of  dance  upon  a  tight  rope  and  a 
slack  rope  too,  in  philosophy  and  theology:  nio-nr 

8'   apa   Ofjuog-    Kat    aTTKrrux.    mXecrav    avSpag-.         11     believing     tOO 

little  or  too  much  is  so  fatal  to  mankind,  what  will 
become  of  us  all? 

In  studying  the  perfectibility  of  human  nature 
and  its  progress  towards  perfection  in  this  world, 
on  this  earth,  remember  that  I  have  met  many 
curious  and  interesting  characters. 

About  three  hundred  years  ago,  there  appeared  a 
number  of  men  of  letters,  who  appeared  to  endeavor 
_to  believe  neither  too  little  nor  too  much.  They 
labored  to  imitate  the  Hebrew  archers,  who  could 
shoot  to  an  hair's  breadth.  The  Pope  and  his 
church  believed  too  much.  Luther  and  his  church 
believed  too  little.  This  little  band  was  headed 
by  three  great  scholars:  Erasmus,  Vives  and  Budasus. 


Correspondence  15 

This  triumvirate  is  said  to  have  been  at  the  head 
of  the  republic  of  letters  in  that  age.  Had  Con- 
dorcet  been  master  of  his  subject,  I  fancy  he  would 
have  taken  more  notice,  in  his  History  of  the 
Progress  of  Mind,  of  these  characters.  Have  you 
their  writings?  I  wish  I  had.  I  shall  confine 
myself  at  present  to  Vives.  He  wrote  commenta- 
ries on  the  City  of  God  of  St.  Augustine,  some 
parts  of  which  were  censured  by  the  Doctors  of 
the  Louvain,  as  too  bold  and  too  free.  I  know 
not  whether  the  following  passage  of  the  learned 
Spaniard  was  among  the  sentiments  condemned 
or  not: 

"I  have  been  much  afflicted,"  says  Vives,  "when 
I  have  seriously  considered  how  diligently,  and 
with  what  exact  care,  the  actions  of  Alexander, 
Hannibal,  Scipio,  Pompey,  Caesar  and  other  com- 
manders, and  the  lives  of  Socrates,  Plato,  Aristotle 
and  other  philosophers,  have  been  written  and 
fixed  in  an  everlasting  remembrance,  so  that  there 
is  not  the  least  danger  they  can  ever  be  lost;  but 
then  the  acts  of  the  Apostles,  and  martyrs  and 
saints  of  our  religion,  and  of  the  affairs  of  the  rising 
and  established  church,  being  involved  in  much 
darkness,  are  almost  totally  unknown,  though  they 
are  of  so  much  greater  advantage  than  the  lives  of 
the  philosophers  or  great  generals,  both  as  to  the 
improvement  of  our  knowledge  and  practice.  For 
what  is  written  of  these  holy  men,  except  a  very 
few  things,   is  very   much   corrupted   and   defaced 


i<5  Jefferson's  Works 

with  the  mixture  of  many  fables,  while  the  writer, 
indulging  his  own  humor,  doth  not  tell  us  what 
the  saint  did,  but  what  the  historian  would  have 
had  him  do.  And  the  fancy  of  the  writer  dictate^ 
the  life  and  not  the  truth  of  things."  And  again 
Vives  says:  " There  have  been  men  who  have 
thought  it  a  great  piece  of  piety,  to  invent  lies  for 
the  sake  of  religion." 

The  great  Cardinal  Barronius,  too,  confesses: 
"There  is  nothing  which  seems  so  much  neglected 
to  this  day,  as  a  true  and  certain  account  of  the 
affairs  of  the  church,  collected  with  an  exact  dili- 
gence. And  that  I  may  speak  of  the  more  ancient, 
it  is  very  difficult  to  find  any  of  them  who  have 
published  commentaries  on  this  subject,  which 
have  hit  the  truth  in  all  points.!' 

Canus,  too,  another  Spanish  prelate  of  great  name, 
says:  "I  speak  it  with  grief  and  not  by  way  of 
reproach,  Laertius  has  written  the  lives  of  the 
philosophers  with  more  ease  and  industry  than  the 
Christians  have  those  of  the  saints.  Suetonius 
has  represented  the  lives  of  the  Caesars  with  much 
more  truth  and  sincerity  than  the  Catholics  have 
the  affairs  (I  will  not  say  of  the  emperors)  but  even 
those  of  the  martyrs,  holy  virgins  and  confessors. 
For  they  have  not  concealed  the  vice  nor  the  very 
suspicions  of  vice,  in  good  and  commendable  philoso- 
phers or  princes,  and  in  the  worst  of  them  they 
discover  the  very  colors  or  appearances  of  virtue. 
But  the  greatest  part  of  our  writers  either  follow 


Correspondence  17 

the  conduct  of  their  affections,  or  industriously 
feign  many  things;  so  that  I,  for  my  part,  am  very 
often  both  weary  and  ashamed  of  them,  because 
I  know  that  they  have  thereby  brought  nothing 
of  advantage  to  the  church  of  Christ,  but  very  much 
inconvenience."  Vives  and  Canus  are  moderns, 
but  Arnobius,  the  converter  of  Laetantius,  was 
ancient.  He  says:  "But  neither  could  all  that 
was  done  be  written,  or  arrive  at  the  knowledge 
of  all  men — many  of  our  great  actions  being  done 
by  obscure  men  and  those  who  had  no  knowledge 
of  letters.  And  if  some  of  them  are  committed  to 
letters  and  writings,  yet  even  here,  by  the  malice 
of  the  devils  and  men  like  them,  whose  great  design 
and  study  is  to  intercept  and  ruin  this  truth,  by 
interpolating  or  adding  some  things  to  them,  or 
by  changing  or  taking  out  words,  syllables  or  letters, 
they  have  put  a  stop  to  the  faith  of  wise  men,  and 
corrupted  the  truth  of  things." 

Indeed,  Mr.  Jefferson,  what  could  be  invented 
to  debase  the  ancient  Christianism,  which  Greeks, 
Romans,  Hebrews  and  Christian  factions,  above  all 
the  Catholics,  have  not  fraudulently  imposed  upon 
the  public?  Miracles  after  miracles  have  rolled 
down  in  torrents,  wave  succeeding  wave  in  the 
Catholic  church,  from  the  Council  of  Nice,  and  long 
before,  to  this  day. 

Aristotle,     no     doubt,     thOUght     his   Ovrc  ?ra<7a  Trio-rev- 

ovres,  ovre  Tratnv  aTuoTowTes ,  very  wise  and  very  pro- 
found; but  what  is  its  worth?    What  man,  woman 

VOL.  XIV — 2 


*8  Jefferson's  Works 

or  child  ever  believed  everything  or  nothing?  Oh! 
that  Priestley  could  live  again,  and  have  leisure 
and  means!  An  inquirer  after  truth,  who  had 
neither  time  nor  means,  might  request  him  to 
search  and  re-search  for  answers  to  a  few  ques- 
tions : 

i.  Have  we  more  than  two  witnesses  of  the  life 
of  Jesus — Matthew  and  John? 

2.  Have  we  one  witness  to  the  existence  of 
Matthew's  gospel  in  the  first  century? 

3.  Have  we  one  witness  of  the  existence  of  John's 
gospel  in  the  first  century? 

4.  Have  we  one  witness  of  the  existence  of  Mark's 
gospel  in  the  first  century? 

5.  Have  we  one  witness  of  the  existence  of  Luke's 
gospel  in  the  first  century? 

6.  Have  we  any  witness  of  the  existence  of  St. 
Thomas'  gospel,  that  is  the  gospel  of  the  infancy, 
in  the  first  century? 

7.  Have  we  any  evidence  of  the  existence  of  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles  in  the  first  century? 

8.  Have  we  any  evidence  of  the  existence  of  the 
supplement  to  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  Peter  and 
Paul,  or  Paul  and  Tecle,  in  the  first  century? 

Here  I  was  interrupted  by  a  new  book,  Chateau- 
briand's Travels  in  Greece,  Palestine  and  Egypt, 
and  by  a  lung  fever  with  which  the  amiable  com- 
panion of  my  life  has  been  violently  and  danger- 
ously attacked. 

December  13th.     I   have   fifty  more   questions  to 


Correspondence  *9 

put  to  Priestley,  but  must  adjourn  them  to  a  future 
opportunity. 

I  have  read  Chateaubriand  with  as  much  delight 
as  I  ever  read  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress,  Robin- 
son Crusoe's  Travels  or  Gulliver's,  or  Whitefield's 
or  Wesley's  Life,  or  the  Life  of  St.  Francis,  St. 
Anthony,  or  St.  Ignatius  Loyola.  A  work  of 
infinite  learning,  perfectly  well  written,  a  magazine 
of  information,  but  enthusiastic,  bigoted,  super- 
stitious, Roman  Catholic  throughout.  If  I  were 
to  indulge  in  jealous  criticism  and  conjecture,  I 
should  suspect  that  there  had  been  an  (Ecu- 
menical council  of  Popes,  Cardinals  and  Bishops, 
and  that  this  traveller  has  been  employed  at  their 
expense  to  make  this  tour,  to  lay  a  foundation  for 
the  resurrection  of  the  Catholic  Hierarchy  in  Europe. 

Have  you  read  La  Harpe's  Cours  de  Literature, 
in  fifteen  volumes?  Have  you  read  St.  Pierre's 
Studies  of  Nature? 

I  am  now  reading  the  controversy  between  Vol- 
taire and  Monotte. 

Our  friend  Rush  has  given  us  for  his  last  legacy, 
an  analysis  of  some  of  the  diseases  of  the  mind. 

Johnson  said,  "We  are  all  more  or  less  mad;" 
and  who  is  or  has  been  more  mad  than  Johnson? 

I  know  of  no  philosopher,  or  theologian,  or  moral- 
ist, ancient  or  modern,  more  profound,  more  infallible 
than  Whitefield,  if  the  anecdote  I  heard  be  true. 

He  began:  "Father  Abraham,"  with  his  hands 
and  eyes  gracefully  directed  to  the  heavens,  as  I 


20  Jefferson's  Works 

have  more  than  once  seen  him;  "Father  Abraham 
whom  have  you  there  with  you?  Have  you  Catho- 
lics?" "No."  "Have  you  Protestants?"  "No." 
"Have  you  Churchmen?"  "No."  "Have  you 
Dissenters?"  "No."  "Have  you  Presbyterians?" 
'kNo."  "Quakers?"  "No."  "Anabaptists?"  "No." 
"Whom  have  you  there?  Are  you  alone?"  "No." 
"My  brethren,  you  have  the  answer  to  all  these 
questions  in  the  words  of  my  text:  'He  who  feareth 
God  and  worketh  righteousness,  shall  be  accepted 

ofHim.'" 

Allegiance  to  the  Creator  and  Governor  of  the 
Milky- Way,  and  the  Nebulae,  and  benevolence  to 
all  His  creatures,  is  my  Religion. 

Si  quid  novisti  rectius  istis,  candidus  imperti. 

I  am  as  ever. 


TO  BARON  ALEXANDER  VON  HUMBOLDT. 

Montpelier,  December  6,  1813. 
My  dear  Friend  and  Baron, — I  have  to  acknowl- 
edge your  two  letters  of  December  20  and  26,  181 1, 
by  Mr.  Correa,  and  am  first  to  thank  you  for  making 
me  acquainted  with  that  most  excellent  character. 
He  was  so  kind  as  to  visit  me  at  Monticello,  and  I 
found  him  one  of  the  most  learned  and  amiable  of 
men.  It  was  a  subject  of  deep  regret  to  separate 
from  so  much  worth  in  the  moment  of  its  becoming 
known  to  us. 


Correspondence  21 

The  livraison  of  your  astronomical  observations, 
and  the  6th  and  7th  on  the  subject  of  New  Spain, 
with  the  corresponding  atlases,  are  duly  received, 
as  had  been  the  preceding  cahiers.  For  these 
treasures  of  a  learning  so  interesting  to  us,  accept 
my  sincere  thanks.  I  think  it  most  fortunate  that 
your  travels  in  those  countries  were  so  timed  as  to 
make  them  known  to  the  world  in  the  moment 
they  were  about  to  become  actors  on  its  stage. 
That  they  will  throw  off  their  European  dependence 
I  have  no  doubt;  but  in  what  kind  of  government 
their  revolution  will  end  I  am  not  so  certain.  History, 
I  believe,  furnishes  no  example  of  a  priest-ridden 
people  maintaining  a  free  civil  government.  This 
marks  the  lowest  grade  of  ignorance,  of  which  their 
civil  as  well  as  religious  leaders  will  always  avail 
themselves  for  their  own  purposes.  The  vicinity 
of  New  Spain  to  the  United  States,  and  their  con- 
sequent intercourse,  may  furnish  schools  for  the 
higher,  and  example  for  the  lower  classes  of  their 
citizens.  And  Mexico,  where  we  learn  from  you 
that  men  of  science  are  not  wanting,  may  revolu- 
tionize itself  under  better  auspices  than  the  Southern 
provinces.  These  last,  I  fear,  must  end  in  military 
despotisms.  The  different  castes  of  their  inhabitants, 
their  mutual  hatreds  and  jealousies,  their  profound 
ignorance  and  bigotry,  will  be  played  off  by  cunning 
leaders,  and  each  be  made  the  instrument  of  enslav- 
ing the  others.  But  of  all  this  you  can  best  judge, 
for  in  truth  we  have  little  knowledge  of  them  to  be 


22  Jefferson's  Works 

depended  on,  but  through  you.  But  in  whatever 
governments  they  end  they  will  be  American  govern  - 
ments,  no  longer  to  be  involved  in  the  never-ceasing 
broils  of  Europe.  The  European  nations  constitute 
a  separate  division  of  the  globe;  their  localities 
make  them  part  of  a  distinct  system;  they  have 
a  set  of  interests  of  their  own  in  which  it  is  our  busi- 
ness never  to  engage  ourselves.  America  has  a 
hemisphere  to  itself.  It  must  have  its  separate 
system  of  interests,  which  must  not  be  subordinated 
to  those  of  Europe.  The  insulated  state  in  which 
nature  has  placed  the  American  continent,  should 
so  far  avail  it  that  no  spark  of  war  kindled  in 
the  other  quarters  of  the  globe  should  be  wafted 
across  the  wide  oceans  which  separate  us  from 
them.  And  it  will  be  so.  In  fifty  years  more  the 
United  States  alone  will  contain  fifty  millions  of 
inhabitants,  and  fifty  years  are  soon  gone  over. 
The  peace  of  1763  is  within  that  period.  I  was  then 
twenty  years  old,  and  of  course  remember  well  all 
the  transactions  o  the  war  preceding  it.  And  you 
will  live  to  see  the  epoch  now  equally  ahead  of  us; 
and  the  numbers  which  will  then  be  spread  over 
the  other  parts  of  the  American  hemisphere,  catch- 
ing long  before  that  the  principles  of  our  portion  of 
it,  and  concurring  with  us  in  the  maintenance  of 
the  same  system.  You  see  how  readily  we  run  into 
ages  beyond  the  grave;  and  even  those  of  us  to 
whom  that  grave  is  already  opening  its  quiet 
bosom.     I    am   anticipating   events   of  which   you 


Correspondence  23 

will  be  the  bearer  to  me  in  the  Elysian  fields  fifty 
years  hence. 

You  know,  my  friend,  the  benevolent  plan  we 
were  pursuing  here  for  the  happiness  of  the  aboriginal 
inhabitants  in  our  vicinities.  We  spared  nothing 
to  keep  them  at  peace  with  one  another.  To  teach 
them  agriculture  and  the  rudiments  of  the  most 
necessary  arts,  and  to  encourage  industry  by  estab- 
lishing among  them  separate  property.  In  this 
way  they  would  have  been  enabled  to  subsist  and 
multiply  on  a  moderate  scale  of  landed  possession. 
They  would  have  mixed  their  blood  with  ours,  and 
been  amalgamated  and  identified  with  us  within 
no  distant  period  of  time.  On  the  commencement 
of  our  present  war,  we  pressed  on  them  the  observ- 
ance of  peace  and  neutrality,  but  the  interested 
and  unprincipled  policy  of  England  has  defeated 
all  our  labors  for  the  salvation  of  these  unfortunate 
people.  They  have  seduced  the  greater  part  of 
the  tribes  within  our  neighborhood,  to  take  up  the 
hatchet  against  us,  and  the  cruel  massacres  they 
have  committed  on  the  womer  and  children  of  our 
frontiers  taken  by  surprise,  will  oblige  us  now  to 
pursue  them  to  extermination,  or  drive  them  to 
new  seats  beyond  our  reach.  Already  we  have 
driven  their  patrons  and  seducers  into  Montreal, 
and  the  opening  season  will  force  them  to  their  last 
refuge,  the  walls  of  Quebec.  We  have  cut  off  all 
possibility  of  intercourse  and  of  mutual  aid,  and 
may  pursue  at  our  leisure  whatever  plan  we  find 


24  Jefferson's  Works 

necessary  to  secure  ourselves  against  the  future 
effects  of  their  savage  and  ruthless  warfare.  The 
confirmed  brutalization,  if  not  the  extermination 
of  this  race  in  our  America,  is  therefore  to  form  an 
additional  chapter  in  the  English  history  of  the 
same  colored  man  in  Asia,  and  of  the  brethren  of 
their  own  color  in  Ireland,  and  wherever  else  Anglo- 
mercantile  cupidity  can  find  a  two-penny  interest 
in  deluging  the  earth  with  human  blood.  But  let 
us  turn  from  the  ■  loathsome  contemplation  of  the 
degrading  effects  of  commercial  avarice. 

That  their  Arrowsmith  should  have  stolen  your 
Map  of  Mexico,  was  in  the  piratical  spirit  of  his 
country.  But  I  should  be  sincerely  sorry  if  our 
Pike  has  made  an  ungenerous  use  of  your  candid 
communications  here;  and  the  more  so  as  he  died 
in  the  arms  of  victory  gained  over  the  enemies  of 
his  country.  Whatever  he  did  was  on  a  principle 
of  enlarging  knowledge,  and  not  for  filthy  shillings 
and  pence  of  which  he  made  none  from  that  work. 
If  what  he  has  borrowed  has  any  effect  it  will  be 
to  excite  an  appeal  in  his  readers  from  his  defective 
information  to  the  copious  volumes  of  it  with  which 
you  have  enriched  the  world.  I  am  sorry  he  omitted 
even  to  acknowledge  the  source  of  his  information. 
It  has  been  an  oversight,  and  not  at  all  in  the  spirit 
of  his  generous  nature.  Let  me  solicit  your  for- 
giveness then  of  a  deceased  hero,  of  an  honest  and 
zealous  patriot,  who  lived  and  died  for  his  country. 

You  will  find  it  inconceivable  that  Lewis's  journey 


Correspondence  25 

to  the  Pacific  should  not  yet  have  appeared;  nor  is 
it  in  my  power  to  tell  you  the  reason.  The  meas- 
ures taken  by  his  surviving  companion,  Clarke,  for 
the  publication,  have  not  answered  our  wishes  in 
poin  of  despatch.  I  think,  however,  from  what 
I  have  heard,  that  the  mere  journal  will  be  out 
within  a  few  weeks  in  two  volumes  8vo.  These' I 
will  take  care  to  send  you  with  the  tobacco  seed 
you  desired,  if  it  be  possible  for  them  to  escape  the 
thousand  ships  of  our  enemies  spread  over  the  ocean. 
The  botanical  and  zoological  discoveries  of  Lewis 
will  probably  experience  greater  delay,  and  become 
known  to  the  world  through  other  channels  before 
that  volume  will  be  ready.  The  Atlas,  I  believe, 
waits  on  the  leisure  of  the  engraver.  , 

Although  I  do  not  know  whether  you  are  now  at 
Paris  or  ranging  the  regions  of  Asia  to  acquire  more 
knowledge  for  the  use  of  men,  I  cannot  deny  myself 
the  gratification  of  an  endeavor  to  recall  myself  to 
your  recollection,  and  of  assuring  you  of  my  constant 
attachment,  and  of  renewing  to  you  the  just  tribute 
of  my  affectionate  esteem  and  high  respect  and 
consideration. 


.-  <m*i  mt**to*u 


TO    MADAME    DE   TESSE. 

Monticello,  December  8,  1813. 
While  at  war,  my  dear  Madame  and  friend,  with 
the  leviathan  of  the  ocean,  there  is  little  hope  of  a 
letter  escaping  his  thousand  ships ;    yet  I  cannot 


26  Jefferson's  Works 

permit  myself  longer  to  withhold  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  your  letter  of  June  28  of  the  last  year,  with 
which  came  the  memoirs  of  the  Margrave  of  Bareuth. 
I  am  much  indebted  to  you  for  this  singular  morsel 
of  history  which  has  given  us  a  certain  view  of 
kings,  queens  and  princes,  disrobed  of  their  formali- 
ties. It  is  a  peep  into  the  state  of  the  Egyptian  god 
Apis.  It  would  not  be  easy  to  find  grosser  manners, 
coarser  vices,  or  more  meanness  in  the  poorest  huts 
of  our  peasantry.  The  princess  shows  herself  the 
legitimate  sister  of  Frederic,  cynical,  selfish,  and 
without  a  heart.  Notwithstanding  your  wars  with 
England,  I  presume  you  get  the  publications  of 
that  country.  The  memoirs  of  Mrs.  Clarke  and 
of  her  darling  prince,  and  the  book,  emphatically 
so  called,  because  it  is  the  Biblia  Sacra  Deorum  et 
Dearum  sub-coelestium,  the  Prince  Regent,  his 
Princess  and  the  minor  deities  of  his  sphere,  form 
a  worthy  sequel  to  the  memoirs  of  Bareuth;  instead 
of  the  vulgarity  and  penury  of  the  court  of  Berlin, 
giving  us  the  vulgarity  and  profusion  of  that  of 
London,  and  the  gross  stupidity  and  profligacy  of 
the  latter,  in  lieu  of  the  genius  and  misanthropism 
of  the  former.  The  whole  might  be  published  as  a 
supplement  to  M.  de  Buffon,  under  the  title  of  the 
"Natural  History  of  Kings  and  Princes,"  or  as  a 
separate  work  and  called  "  Medicine  for  Monarch- 
ists." The  "  Intercepted  Letters,"  a  later  English 
publication  of  great  wit  and  humor,  has  put  them 
to  their  proper  use  by  holding  them  up  as  butts  fol 


Correspondence  27 

the  ridicule  and  contempt  of  mankind.  Yet  by 
such  worthless  beings  is  a  great  nation  to  be  governed 
and  even  made  to  deify  their  old  king  because  he 
is  only  a  fool  and  a  maniac,  and  to  forgive  and 
forget  his  having  lost  to  them  a  great  and  flourish- 
ing empire,  added  nine  hundred  millions  sterling 
to  their  debt,  for  which  the  fee  simple  of  the  whole 
island  would  not  sell,  if  offered  farm  by  farm  at 
public  auction,  and  increased  their  annual  taxes  from 
eight  to  seventy  millions  sterling,  more  than  the 
whole  rent-roll  of  the  island.  What  must  be  the 
dreary  prospect  from  the  son  when  such  a  father 
is  deplored  as  a  national  loss.  But  let  us  drop 
these  odious  beings  and  pass  to  those  of  an  higher 
order,  the  plants  of  the  field.  I  am  afraid  I  have 
given  you  a  great  deal  more  trouble  than  I  intended 
by  my  inquiries  for  the  Maronnier  or  Castanea 
Saliva,  of  which  I  wished  to  possess  my  own  country, 
without  knowing  how  rare  its  culture  was  even  in 
yours.  The  two  plants  which  your  researches  have 
placed  in  your  own  garden,  it  will  be  all  but  impos- 
sible to  remove  hither.  The  war  renders  their  safe 
passage  across  the  Atlantic  extremely  precarious, 
and,  if  landed  anywhere  but  in  the  Chesapeake,  the 
risk  of  the  additional  voyage  along  the  coast  to 
Virginia,  is  still  greater.  Under  these  circumstances 
it  is  better  they  should  retain  their  present  station, 
and  compensate  to  you  the  trouble  they  have  cost 
you. 

I  learn  with  great  pleasure  the  success  of  your 


28  Jefferson's  Works 

new  gardens  at  Auenay.  No  occupation  can  be 
more  delightful  or  useful.  They  will  have  the 
merit  of  inducing  you  to  forget  those  of  Chaville. 
With  the  botanical  riches  which  you  mention  to 
have  been  derived  to  England  from  New  Holland, 
we  are  as  yet  unacquainted.  Lewis's  journey  across 
our  continent  to  the  Pacific  has  added  a  number 
of  new  plants  to  our  former  stock.  Some  of  them 
are  curious,  some  ornamental,  some  useful,  and 
some  may  by  culture  be  made  acceptable  on  our 
tables.  I  have  growing,  which  I  destine  for  you, 
a  very  handsome  little  shrub  of  the  size  of  a  currant 
bush.  Its  beauty  consists  in  a  great  produce  of 
berries  of  the  size  of  currants,  and  literally  as  white 
as  snow,  which  remain  on  the  bush  through  the 
winter,  after  its  leaves  have  fallen,  and  make  it  an 
object  as  singular  as  it  is  beautiful.  We  call  it  the 
snow-berry  bush,  tio  botanical  name  being  yet 
given  to  it,  but  I  do  not  know  why  we  might  not 
call  it  Chionicoccos,  or  Kallicoccos.  All  Lewis's 
plants  are  growing  in  the  garden  of  Mr.  McMahon, 
a  gardener  of  Philadelphia,  to  whom  I  consigned 
them,  and  from  whom  I  shall  have  great  pleasure, 
when  peace  is  restored,  in  ordering  for  you  any  of 
these  or  of  our  other  indigenous  plants.  The  port 
of  Philadelphia  has  great  intercourse  with  Bordeaux 
and  Nantes,  and  some  little  perhaps  with  Havre. 
I  was  mortified  not  long  since  by  receiving  a  letter 
from  a  merchant  in  Bordeaux,  apologizing  for  hav- 
ing suffered  a  box  of  plants  addressed  by  me  to  you, 


Correspondence  n 

to  get  accidentally  covered  in  his  warehouse  by 
other  objects,  and  to  remain  three  years  undis- 
covered, when  every  thing  in  it  was  found  to  be 
rotten.  I  have  learned  occasionally  that  others 
rotted  in  the  warehouses  of  the  English  pirates. 
We  are  now  settling  that  account  with  them.  We 
have  taken  their  Upper  Canada  and  shall  add  the 
Lower  to  it  when  the  season  will  admit;  and  hope 
to  remove  them  fully  and  finally  from  our  continent. 
And  what  they  will  feel  more,  for  they  value  their  colo- 
nies only  for  the  bales  of  cloth  they  take  from  them, 
we  have  established  manufactures,  not  only  sufficient 
to  supersede  our  demand  from  them,  but  to  rivalize 
them  in  foreign  markets.  But  for  the  course  of 
our  war  I  will  refer  you  to  M.  de  Lafayette,  to  whom 
I  state  it  more  particularly. 

Our  friend  Mr.  Short  is  well.  He  makes  Phila- 
delphia his  winter  quarters,  and  New  York,  or  the 
country,  those  of  the  summer.  In  his  fortune  he 
is  perfectly  independent  and  at  ease,  and  does  not 
trouble  himself  with  the  party  politics  of  our  country. 
Will  you  permit  me  to  place  here  for  M.  de  Tesse 
the  testimony  of  my  high  esteem  and  respect,  and 
accept  for  yourself  an  assurance  of  the  warm  recol- 
lections I  retain  of  your  many  civilities  and  courtesies 
to  me,  and  the  homage  of  my  constant  and  affection- 
ate attachment  and  respect. 


3°  Jefferson's  Works 


TO  DON  VALENTIN  DE  TORONDA  CORUNA. 

Monticello,  December  14,   181 3. 

Dear  Sir, — I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  receiving 
several  letters  from  you,  covering  printed  propo- 
sitions and  pamphlets  on  the  state  of  your  affairs, 
and  all  breathing  the  genuine  sentiments  of  order, 
liberty  and  philanthropy,  with  which  I  know  you 
to  be  sincerely  inspired.  We  learn  little  to  be 
depended  on  here  as  to  your  civil  proceedings,  or 
of  the  division  of  sentiments  among  you;  but  in 
this  absence  of  information  I  have  made  whatever 
you  propose  the  polar  star  of  my  wishes.  What 
is  to  be  the  issue  of  your  present  struggles  we  here 
cannot  judge.  But  we  sincerely  wish  it  may  be 
what  is  best  for  the  happiness  and  re-invigoration 
of  your  country.  That  its  divorce  from  its  American 
colonies,  which  is  now  unavoidable,  will  be  a  great 
blessing,  it  is  impossible  not  to  pronounce  on  a 
review  of  what  Spain  was  when  she  acquired  them, 
and  of  her  gradual  descent  from  that  proud  eminence 
to  the  condition  in  which  her  present  w^ar  found 
her.  Nature  has  formed  that  peninsula  to  be  the 
second,  and  why  not  the  first  nation  in  Europe? 
Give  equal  habits  of  energy  to  the  bodies,  and  of 
science  to  the  minds  of  her  citizens,  and  where  could 
her  superior  be  found?  The  most  advantageous 
relation  in  which  she  can  stand  with  her  American 
colonies  is  that  of  independent  friendship,  secured 
by  the  ties  of  consanguinity,  sameness  of  language, 


Correspondence  31 

religion,  manners,  and  habits,  and  certain  from 
the  influence  of  these,  of  a  preference  in  her  com- 
merce, if,  instead  of  the  eternal  irritations,  thwart- 
ings,  machinations  against  their  new  governments, 
the  insults  and  aggressions  which  Great  Britain 
has  so  unwisely  practised  towards  us,  to  force  us 
to  hate  her  against  our  natural  inclinations,  Spain 
yields,  like  a  genuine  parent,  to  the  forisfamiliation 
of  her  colonies,  now  at  maturity,  if  she  extends  to 
them  her  affections,  her  aid,  her  patronage  in  every 
court  and  country,  it  will  weave  a  bond  of  union 
indissoluble  by  time.  We  are  in  a  state  of  semi- 
warfare  with  your  adjoining  colonies,  the  Floridas. 
We  do  not  consider  this  as  affecting  our  peace  with 
Spain  or  any  other  of  her  former  possessions.  We 
wish  her  and  them  well;  and  under  her  present 
difficulties  at  home,  and  her  doubtful  future  rela- 
tions with  her  colonies,  both  wisdom  and  interest 
will,  I  presume,  induce  her  to  leave  them  to  settle 
themselves  the  quarrels  they  draw  on  themselves 
from  their  neighbors.  The  commanding  officers 
in  the  Floridas  have  excited  and  armed  the  neigh- 
boring savages  to  war  against  us,  and  to  murder  and 
scalp  many  of  our  women  and  children  as  well  as 
men,  taken  by  surprise — poor  creatures!  They 
have  paid  for  it  with  the  loss  of  the  flower  of  their 
strength,  and  have  given  us  the  right,  as  we  possess 
the  power,  to  exterminate  or  to  expatriate  them 
beyond  the  Mississippi.  This  conduct  of  the  Spanish 
officers  will  probably  oblige  us  to  take  possession 


32  Jefferson's  Works 

of  the  Floridas,  and  the  rather  as  we  believe  the 
English  will  otherwise  seize  them,  and  use  them  as 
stations  to  distract  and  annoy  us.  But  should 
we  possess  ourselves  of  them,  and  Spain  retain  her 
other  colonies  in  this  hemisphere,  I  presume  we 
shall  consider  them  in  our  hands  as  subjects  of 
negotiation. 

We  are  now  at  the  close  of  our  second  campaign 
with  England.  During  the  first  we  suffered  several 
checks,  from  the  want  of  capable  and  tried  officers; 
all  the  higher  ones  of  the  Revolution  having  died 
off  during  an  interval  of  thirty  years  of  peace.  But 
this  second  campaign  has  been  more  successful, 
having  given  us  all  the  lakes  and  country  of  Upper 
Canada,  except  the  single  post  of  Kingston,  at  its 
lower  extremity.  The  two  immediate  causes  of 
the  war  were  the  orders  of  council,  and  impress- 
ment of  our  seamen.  The  first  having  been  removed 
after  we  had  declared  war,  the  war  is  continued  for 
the  second;  and  a  third  has  been  generated  by 
their  conduct  during  the  war,  in  exciting  the  Indian 
hordes  to  murder  and  scalp  the  women  and  children 
on  our  frontier.  This  renders  peace  forever  impos- 
sible but  on  the  establishment  of  such  a  meridian 
boundary  to  their  possessions,  as  that  they  never 
more  can  have  such  influence  with  the  savages  as 
to  excite  again  the  same  barbarities.  The  thousand 
ships,  too,  they  took  from  us  in  peace,  and  the  six 
thousand  seamen  impressed,  call  for  this  indemni- 
fication.    On  the  water  we  have  proved  to   the 


Correspondence  33 

world  the  error  of  their  invincibility,  and  shown 
that  with  equal  force  and  well-trained  officers,  they 
can  be  beaten  by  other  nations  as  brave  as  them- 
selves. Their  lying  officers  and  printers  will  give 
to  Europe  very  different  views  of  the  state  of  their 
war  with  us.  But  you  will  see  now,  as  in  the 
Revolutionary  war,  that  they  will  lie,  and  conquer 
themselves  out  of  all  their  possessions  on  this  con- 
tinent. 

I  pray  for  the  happiness  of  your  nation,  and  that 
it  may  be  blessed  with  sound  views  and  successful 
measures,  under  the  difficulties  in  which  it  is  in- 
volved; and  especially  that  they  may  know  the 
value  of  your  counsels,  and  to  yourself  I  tender 
the  assurances  of  my  high  respect  and  esteem. 


JOHN    ADAMS   TO   THOMAS   JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  December  25,   1813. 

Dear  Sir, — Answer  my  letters  at  your  leisure. 
Give  yourself  no  concern.  I  write  as  for  a  refuge 
and  protection  against  ennui. 

The  fundamental  principle  of  all  philosophy  and 
all  Christianity,  is  "Rejoice  always  in  all  things!" 
"  Be  thankful  at  all  times  for  all  good,  and  all  that 
we  call  evil."  Will  it  not  follow  that  I  ought  to 
rejoice  and  be  thankful  that  Priestley  has  lived? 
That  Gibbon  has  lived?  That  Hume  has  lived, 
though  a  conceited  Scotchman?    That  Bolingbroke 

VOL.  XIV — 1 


34  Jefferson's  Works 

has  lived,  though  a  haughty,  arrogant,  supercilious 
dogmatist?  That  Burke  and  Johnson  have  lived, 
though  superstitious  slaves,  or  self -deceiving  hypo- 
crites, both?  Is  it  not  laughable  to  hear  Burke 
call  Bolingbroke  a  superficial  writer?  To  hear  him 
ask:  "Who  ever  read  him  through?"  Had  I  been 
present,  I  would  have  answered  him,  "I,  I  myself, 
I  have  read  him  through  more  than  fifty  years  ago, 
and  more  than  five  times  in  my  life,  and  once  within 
five  years  past.  And  in  my  opinion,  the  epithet 
'superficial,'  belongs  to  you  and  your  friend  John- 
son more  than  to  him." 

I  might  say  much  more.  But  I  believe  Burke 
and  Johnson  to  have  been  as  political  Christians 
as  Leo  Tenth. 

I  return  to  Priestley,  though  I  have  great  com- 
plaints against  him  for  personal  injuries  and  perse- 
cution, at  the  same  time  that  I  forgive  it  all,  and 
hope  and  pray  that  he  may  be  pardoned  for  it  all 
above. 

Dr.  Brocklesby,  an  intimate  friend  and  convivial 
companion  of  Johnson,  told  me  that  Johnson  died 
in  agonies  of  horror  of  annihilation;  and  all  the 
accounts  we  have  of  his  death,  corroborate  this 
account  of  Brocklesby.  Dread  of  annihilation! 
Dread  of  nothing!  A  dread  of  nothing,  I  should 
think,  would  be  no  dread  at  all.  Can  there  be  any 
real,  substantial,  rational  fear  of  nothing?  Were 
you  on  your  death-bed,  and  in  your  last  moments 
informed  by  demonstration  of  revelation,  that  you 


Correspondence  3  5 

would  cease  to  think  and  to  feel,  at  your  dissolution, 
should  you  be  terrified?  You  might  be  ashamed  of 
yourself  for  having  lived  so  long  to  bear  the  proud 
man's  contumely.  You  might  be  ashamed  of  your 
Maker,  and  compare  Him  to  a  little  girl,  amusing 
herself,  her  brothers  and  sisters,  by  blowing  bubbles 
in  soap-suds.  You  might  compare  Him  to  boys 
sporting  with  crackers  and  rockets,  or  to  men 
employed  in  making  mere  artificial  fire- works,  or 
to  men  and  women  at  fairs  and  operas,  or  Sadlers 
Wells'  exploits,  or  to  politicians  in  their  intrigues, 
or  to  heroes  in  their  butcheries,  or  to  Popes  in  their 
devilisms.  But  what  should  you  fear?  Nothing. 
Emori  nolo,  sed  me  mortuum  esse  nihil  estimo. 

To  return  to  Priestley.  You  could  make  a  more 
luminous  book  than  his,  upon  the  doctrines  of 
heathen  philosophers  compared  with  those  of  reve- 
lation. Why  has  he  not  given  us  a  more  satisfactory 
account  of  the  Pythagorean  Philosophy  and  Theol- 
ogy? He  barely  names  (Eileus,  who  lived  long 
before  Plato.  His  treatise  of  kings  and  monarchy 
has  been  destroyed,  I  conjecture,  by  Platonic 
Philosophers,  Platonic  Jews  or  Christians,  or  by 
fraudulent  republicans  or  despots.  His  treatise 
of  the  universe  has  been  preserved.  He  labors 
to  prove  the  eternity  of  the  world.  The  Marquis 
D'Argens  translated  it,  in  all  its  noble  simplicity. 
The  Abbe  Batteaux  has  since  given  another  transla- 
tion. D'Argens  not  only  explains  the  text,  but 
sheds  more  light  upon  the  ancient  systems.     His 


36  Jefferson's' Works 

remarks  are  so  many  treatises,  which  develop  the 
concatenation  of  ancient  opinions.  The  most 
essential  ideas  of  the  theology,  of  the  physics,  and 
of  the  morality  of  the  ancients  are  clearly  explained, 
and  their  different  doctrines  compared  with  one 
another  and  with  the  modern  discoveries.  I  wish 
I  owned  this  book  and  one  hundred  thousand  more 
that  I  want  every  day,  now  when  I  am  almost 
incapable  of  making  any  use  of  them,  No  doubt 
he  informs  us  that  Pythagoras  was  a  great  traveller. 
Priestley  barely  mentions  Timoeus,  but  it  does  not 
appear  that  he  had  read  him.  Why  has  he  not 
given  us  an  account  of  him  and  his  book?  He 
was  before  Plato,  and  gave  him  the  idea  of  his 
Timoeus,  and  much  more  of  his  philosophy. 

After  his  master,  he  maintained  the  existence  of 
matter;  that  matter  was  capable  of  receiving  all 
sorts  of  forms;  that  a  moving  power  agitated  all 
the  parts  of  it,  and  that  an  intelligence  produced 
a  regular  and  harmonious  world.  This  intelligence 
had  seen  a  plan,  an  idea  (Logos)  in  conformity  to 
which  it  wrought,  and  without  which  it  would  not 
have  known  what  it  was  about,  nor  what  it  wanted 
to  do.  This  plan  was  the  idea,  image  or  model 
which  had  represented  to  the  Supreme  Intelligence 
the  world  before  it  existed,  which  had  directed  it 
in  its  action  upon  the  moving  power,  and  which 
it  contemplated  in  forming  the  elements,  the  bodies 
and  the  world.  This  model  was  distinguished 
from  the  intelligence  which  produced  the  world,  as 


Correspondence  37 

the  architect  is  from  his  plans.  He  divided  the 
productive  cause  of  the  world  into  a  spirit  which 
directed  the  moving  force,  and  into  an  image  which 
determined  it  in  the  choice  of  the  directions  which 
it  gave  to  the  moving  force,  and  the  forms  which  it 
gave  to  matter.  I  wonder  that  Priestley  has  over- 
looked this,  because  it  is  the  same  philosophy  with 
Plato's,  and  would  have  shown  that  the  Pythago- 
rean as  well  as  the  Platonic  philosophers  probably 
concurred  in  the  fabrication  of  the  Christian  Trinity. 
Priestley  mentions  the  name  of  Achylas,  but  does 
not  appear  to  have  read  him,  though  he  was  a 
successor  of  Pythagoras,  and  a  great  mathematician, 
a  great  statesman  and  a  great  general.  John  Gram, 
a  learned  and  honorable  Dane,  has  given  a  hand- 
some edition  of  his  works,  with  a  Latin  translation 
and  an  ample  account  of  his  life  and  writings. 
Zaleucus,  the  Legislator  of  Locris,  and  Charondas, 
of  Sybaris,  were  disciples  of  Pythagoras,  and  both 
celebrated  to  immortality  for  the  wisdom  of  their 
laws,  five  hundred  years  before  Christ.  Why  are 
those  laws  lost?  I  say  the  spirit  of  party  has  de- 
stroyed them;  civil,  political  and  ecclesiastical 
bigotry. 

Despotical,  monarchical,  aristocratical  and  demo- 
cratical  fury  have  all  been  employed  in  this  work 
of  destruction  of  everything  that  could  give  us 
true  light,  and  a  clear  insight  of  antiquity.  For 
every  one  of  these  parties,  when  possessed  of  power, 
or  when  they  have  been  undermost,  and  struggling 


38  XeffersoriT  Works 

to  get  uppermost,  has  been  equally  prone  to  every 
species  of  fraud  and  violence  and  usurpation. 

Why  has  not  Priestley  mentioned  these  Legisla- 
tors? The  preamble  to  the  laws  of  Zaleucus,  which 
is  all  that  remains,  is  as  orthodox  Christian  theology 
as  Priestley's,  and  Christian  benevolence  and  forgive- 
ness of  injuries  almost  as  clearly  expressed. 

Priestley  ought  to  have  done  impartial  justice  to 
philosophy  and  philosophers.  Philosophy,  which 
is  the  result  of  reason,  is  the  first,  the  original 
revelation  of  the  Creator  to  his  creature,  man.  When 
this  revelation  is  clear  and  certain  by  intuition  or 
necessary  induction,  no  subsequent  revelation  sup- 
ported by  prophecies  or  miracles  can  supersede  it. 
Philosophy  is  not  only  the  love  of  wisdom,  but  the 
science  of  the  universe  and  its  cause. 

There  is,  there  was,  and  there  will  be  but  one 
master  of  philosophy  in  the  universe.  Portions  of 
it,  in  different  degrees,  are  revealed  to  creatures. 

Philosophy  looks  with  an  impartial  eye  on  all 
terrestrial  religions.  I  have  examined  all,  as  well 
as  my  narrow  sphere,  my  straitened  means  and 
my  busy  life  would  allow  me,  and  the  result  is,  that 
the  Bible  is  the  best  book  in  the  world.  It  contains 
more  of  my  little  philosophy  than  all  the  libraries 
I  have  seen ;  and  such  parts  of  it  as  I  cannot  recon- 
cile to  my  little  philosophy,  I  postpone  for  future 
investigation. 

Priestley  ought  to  have  given  us  a  sketch  of  the 
religion  and  morale  of  Zoroaster,  of  Sanchoniathon, 


Correspondence  39 

of  Confucius,  and  all  the  founders  of  religions  before 
Christ,  whose  superiority  would,  from  such  a  com- 
parison, have  appeared  the  more  transcendent. 

Priestley  ought  to  have  told  us  that  Pythagoras 
passed   twenty   years   in   his   travels   in    India,    in 
Egypt,  in  Chaldea,  perhaps  in  Sodom  and  Gomorrah, 
Tyre  and  Sidon.     He  ought  to  have  told  us  that 
in  India  he  conversed  with  the  Brahmins,  and  read 
the  Shasta,  five  thousand  years  old,  written  in  the 
language  of  the  sacred  Sansosistes,  with  the  elegance 
and  sentiments   of  Plato.     Where   is  to  be  found 
theology  more  orthodox,  or  philosophy  more  pro- 
found,   than   in    the    introduction   to    the    Shasta? 
"  God  is  one  creator  of  all  universal  sphere,  without 
beginning,    without    end.      God    governs    all    the 
creation  by   a  general   providence,   resulting   from 
his   eternal   designs.     Search   not   the   essence   and 
the  nature  of  the  eternal,  who  is  one ;  your  research 
will  be  vain  and  presumptuous.     It  is  enough  that, 
day  by  day,   and  night  by  night,   you  adore   his 
power,  his  wisdom  and  his  goodness,  in  his  works. 
The  eternal  willed  in  the  fullness  of  time,  to  com- 
municate   of   his   essence    and   of   his    splendor,  to 
beings  capable  of  perceiving  it.     They  as  yet  existed 
not.     The  eternal  willed  and  they  were.     He  created 
Birma,   Vitsnou  and   Siv."     These   doctrines,   sub- 
lime, if  ever  there  were  any  sublime,   Pythagoras 
learned  in  India,  and  taught  them  to  Zaleucus  and 
his    other    disciples.     He    there    learned    also    his 
metempsychosis,  but  this  never  was  popular,  never 


40  Jefferson's  Works 

made  much  progress  in  Greece  or  Italy,  or  any- 
other  country  besides  India  and  Tartary,  the  region 
of  the  grand  immortal  Lama.  And  how  does  this 
differ  from  the  possessions  of  demons  in  Greece  and 
Rome?  from  the  demon  of  Socrates?  from  the 
worship  of  cows  and  crocodiles  in  Egypt  and  else- 
where ? 

After  migrating  through  various  animals,  from 
elephants  to  serpents,  according  to  their  behavior, 
souls  that  at  last  behaved  well,  became  men  and 
women,  and  then  if  they  were  good,  they  went  to 
heaven. 

All  ended  in  heaven,  if  they  became  virtuous. 
Who  can  wonder  at  the  widow  of  M,alabar?  Where 
is  the  lady,  who,  if  her  faith  were  without  doubt 
that  she  should  go  to  heaven  with  her  husband  on 
the  one,  or  migrate  into  a  toad  or  a  wasp  on  the 
other,  would  not  lie  down  on  the  pile,  and  set  fire 
to  the  fuel? 

Modifications  and  disguises  of  the  Metempsycho- 
sis, have  crept  into  Egypt,  and  Greece,  and  Rome, 
and  other  countries.  Have  you  read  Farmer  on 
the  Daemons  and  possessions  of  the  New  Testament  ? 
According  to  the  Shasta,  Moisasor,  with  his  com- 
panions, rebelled  against  the  Eternal,  and  were 
precipitated  down  to  Ondoro,  the  region  of  dark- 
ness. 

Do  you  know  anything  of  the  Prophecy  of  Enoch  ? 
Can  you  give  me  a  comment  on  the  6th,  the  9  th, 
the  14th  verses  of  the  epistle  of  Jude? 


Correspondence  41 

If  I  am  not  weary  of  writing,  I  am  sure  you  must 
be  of  reading  such  incoherent  rattle.  I  will  not 
persecute  you  so  severely  in  future,  if  I  can  help  it. 

So  farewell. 


TO   THOMAS    LEIPER. 

Monticello,  January  1,  1814. 

Dear  Sir, — I  had  hoped,  when  I  retired  from 
the  business  of  the  world,  that  I  should  have  been 
permitted  to  pass  the  evening  of  life  in  tranquillity, 
undisturbed  by  the  peltings  and  passions  of  which 
the  public  papers  are  the  vehicles.  I  see,  however, 
that  I  have  been  dragged  into  the  newspapers  by 
the  infidelity  of  one  with  whom  I  was  formerly 
intimate,  but  who  has  abandoned  the  American 
principles  out  of  which  that  intimacy  grew,  and 
become  the  bigoted  partisan  of  England,  and  malcon- 
tent of  his  own  government.  In  a  letter  which  he 
wrote  to  me,  he  earnestly  besought  me  to  avail  our 
country  of  the  good  understanding  which  existed 
between  the  executive  and  myself,  by  recommending 
an  offer  of  such  terms  to  our  enemy  as  might  produce 
a  peace,  towards  which  he  was  confident  that  enemy 
was  disposed.  In  my  answer,  I  stated  the  aggressions, 
the  insults  and  injuries,  which  England  had  been 
heaping  on  us  for  years,  our  long  forbearance  in  the 
hope  she  might  be  led  by  time  and  reflection  to  a 
sounder  view  of  her  own  interests,  and  of  their 


42  Jefferson's  Works 

connection  with  justice  to  us,  the  repeated  proposi- 
tions for  accommodation  made  by  us  and  rejected 
by  her,  and  at  length  her  Prince  Regent's  solemn 
proclamation  to  the  world  that  he  would  never 
repeal  the  orders  in  council  as  to  us,  until  France 
should  have  revoked  her  illegal  decrees  as  to  all  the 
world,  and  her  minister's  declaration  to  ours,  that 
no  admissible  precaution  against  the  impressment 
of  our  seamen,  could  be  proposed:  that  the  unavoid- 
able declaration  of  war  which  followed  these  was 
accompanied  by  advances  for  peace,  on  terms 
which  no  American  could  dispense  with,  made 
through  various  channels,  and  unnoticed  and  un- 
answered through  any ;  but  that  if  he  could  suggest 
any  other  conditions  which  we  ought  to  accept,  and 
which  had  not  been  repeatedly  offered  and  rejected, 
I  was  ready  to  be  the  channel  of  their  conveyance 
to  the  government;  and,  to  show  him  that  neither 
that  attachment  to  Bonaparte  nor  French  influence, 
which  they  allege  eternally  without  believing  it 
themselves,  affected  my  mind,  I  threw  in  the  two 
little  sentences  of  the  printed  extract  enclosed  in 
your  friendly  favor  of  the  9th  ultimo,  and  exactly 
these  two  little  sentences,  from  a  letter  of  two  or 
three  pages,  he  has  thought  proper  to  publish, 
naked,  alone,  and  with  my  name,  although  other 
parts  of  the  letter  would  have  shown  that  I  wished 
such  limits  only  to  the  successes  of  Bonaparte,  as 
should  not  prevent  his  completely  closing  Europe 
against  British  manufactures  and  commerce;  and 
thereby  reducing  her  to  just  terms  of  peacfe  with  us. 


Correspondence  43 

Thus  am  I  situated.  I  receive  letters  from  all 
quarters,  some  from  known  friends,  some  from  those 
who  write  like  friends,  on  various  subjects.  What 
am  I  to  do  ?  Am  I  to  button  myself  up  in  Jesuitical 
reserve,  rudely  declining  any  answer,  or  answering 
in  terms  so  unmeaning  as  only  to  prove  my  distrust? 
Must  I  withdraw  myself  from  all  interchange  of 
sentiment  with  the  world?  I  cannot  do  this.  It  is 
at  war  with  my  habits  and  temper.  I  cannot  act 
as  if  all  men  were  unfaithful  because  some  are  so; 
nor  believe  that  all  will  betray  me,  because  some  do. 
I  had  rather  be  the  victim  of  occasional  infidelities, 
than  relinquish  my  general  confidence  in  the  honesty 
of  man. 

So  far  as  to  the  breach  of  confidence  which  has 
brought  me  into  the  newspapers,  with  a  view  to 
embroil  me  with  my  friends,  by  a  supposed  separa- 
tion in  opinion  and  principle  from  them.  But  it  is 
impossible  that  there  can  be  any  difference  of  opinion 
among  us  on  the  two  propositions  contained  in  these 
two  little  sentences,  when  explained,  as  they  were 
explained  in  the  context  from  which  they  wer£  insu- 
lated. That  Bonaparte  is  an  unprincipled  tyrant, 
who  is  deluging  the  continent  of  Europe  with  blood, 
there  is  not  a  human  being,  not  even  the  wife  of  his 
bosom,  who  does  not  see;  nor  can  there,  I  think,  be 
a  doubt  as  to  the  line  we  ought  to  wish  drawn 
between  his  successes  and  those  of  Alexander. 
Surely  none  of  us  wish  to  see  Bonaparte  conquer 
Russia,  and  lay  thus  at  his  feet  the  whole  continent 


44  Jefferson's  Works 

of  Europe.  This  done,  England  would  be  but  a 
breakfast;  and,  although  I  am  free  from  the  visionary- 
fears  which  the  votaries  of  England  have  affected  to 
entertain,  because  I  believe  he  cannot  effect  the 
conquest  of  Europe;  yet  put  all  Europe  into  his 
hands,  and  he  might  spare  such  a  force,  to  be  sent 
in  British  ships,  as  I  would  as  leave  not  have  to 
encounter,  when  I  see  how  much  trouble  a  handful 
of  British  soldiers  in  Canada  has  given  us.  No.  It 
cannot  be  to  our  interest  that  all  Europe  should  be 
reduced  to  a  single  monarchy.  The  true  line  of 
interest  for  us,  is,  that  Bonaparte  should  be  able  to 
effect  the  complete  exclusion  of  England  from  the 
whole  continent  of  Europe,  in  order,  as  the  same 
letter  said,  "by  this  peaceable  engine  of  constraint, 
to  make  her  renounce  her  views  of  dominion  over 
the  ocean,  of  permitting  no  other  nation  to  navigate 
it  but  with  her  license,  and  on  tribute  to  her,  and 
her  aggressions  on  the  persons  of  our  citizens  who 
may  choose  to  exercise  their  right  of  passing  over 
that  element."  And  this  would  be  effected  by 
Bonaparte's  succeeding  so  far  as  to  close  the  Baltic 
against  her.  This  success  I  wished  him  the  last 
year,  this  I  wish  him  this  year;  but  were  he  again 
advanced  to  Moscow,  I  should  again  wish  him  such 
disasters  as  would  prevent  his  reaching  Petersburg. 
And  were  the  consequences  even  to  be  the  longer 
continuance  of  our  war,  I  would  rather  meet  them 
than  see  the  whole  force  of  Europe  wielded  by  a 
single  hand, 


Correspondence  -45 

I  have  gone  into  this  explanation,  my  friend, 
because  I  know  you  will  not  carry  my  letter  to  the 
newspapers,  and  because  I  am  willing  to  trust  to 
your  discretion  the  explaining  me  to  our  honest  fellow 
laborers,  and  the  bringing  them  to  pause  and  reflect, 
if  any  of  them  have  not  sufficiently  reflected  on  the 
extent  of  the  success  we  ought  to  wish  to  Bonaparte, 
with  a  view  to  our  own  interests  only;  and  even 
were  we  not  men,  to  whom  nothing  human  should 
be  indifferent.  But  is  our  particular  interest  to 
make  us  insensible  to  all  sentiments  of  morality? 
Is  it  then  become  criminal,  the  moral  wish  that  the 
torrents  of  blood  this  man  is  shedding  in  Europe, 
the  sufferings  of  so  many  human  beings,  good  as 
ourselves,  on  whose  necks  he  is  trampling,  the  burn- 
ings of  ancient  cities,  devastations  of  great  countries, 
the  destruction  of  law  and  order,  and  demoralization 
of  the  world,  should  be  arrested,  even  if  it  should 
place  our  peace  a  little  further  distant?  No.  You 
and  I  cannot  differ  in  wishing  that  Russia,  and 
Sweden,  and  Denmark,  and  Germany,  and  Spain, 
and  Portugal,  and  Italy,  and  even  England,  may 
retain  their  independence.  And  if  we  differ  in  our 
opinions  about  Towers  and  his  four  beasts  and  ten 
kingdoms,  we  differ  as  friends,  indulging  mutual 
errors,  and  doing  justice  to  mutual  sincerity  and 
honesty.  In  this  spirit  of  sincere  confidence  and 
affection,  I  pray  God  to  bless  you  here  and  hereafter. 


46.  Jefferson's  Works 

TO    DR.    WALTER   JONES. 

Monticello,  January  2,   1814. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  November  the  25th 
reached  this  place  December  the  21st,  having  been 
near  a  month  on  the  way.  How  this  could  happen 
I  know  not,  as  we  have  two  mails  a  week  both  from 
Fredericksburg  and  Richmond.  It  found  me  just 
returned  from  a  long  journey  and  absence,  during 
which  so  much  business  had  accumulated,  com- 
manding the  first  attentions,  that  another  week  has 
been  added  to  the  delay. 

I  deplore,  with  you,  the  putrid  state  into  which 
our  newspapers  have  passed,  and  the  malignity,  the 
vulgarity,  and  mendacious  spirit  of  those  who  write 
for  them;  and  I  enclose  you  a  recent  sample,  the 
production  of  a  New  England  judge,  as  a  proof  of 
the  abyss  of  degradation  into  which  we  are  fallen. 
These  ordures  are  rapidly  depraving  the  public  taste, 
and  lessening  its  relish  for  sound  food.  As  vehicles 
of  information,  and  a  curb  on  our  functionaries,  they 
have  rendered  themselves  useless,  by  forfeiting  all 
title  to  belief.  That  this  has,  in  a  great  degree,  been 
produced  by  the  violence  and  malignity  of  party 
spirit,  I  agree  with  you;  and  I  have  read  with  great 
pleasure  the  paper  you  enclosed  me  on  that  subject, 
which  I  now  return.  It  is  at  the  same  time  a  perfect 
model  of  the  style  of  discussion  which  candor  and 
decency  should  observe,  of  the  tone  which  renders 
difference  of  opinion  even  amiable,  and  a  succinct, 


Correspondence  47 

correct,  and  dispassionate  history  of  the  origin  and 
progress  of  party  among  us.  It  might  be  incor- 
porated as  it  stands,  and  without  changing  a  word, 
into  the  history  of  the  present  epoch,  and  would 
give  to  posterity  a  fairer  view  .of  the  times  than 
they  will  probably  derive  from  other  sources.  In 
reading  it  with  great  satisfaction,  there  was  but  a 
single  passage  where  I  wished  a  little  more  develop- 
ment of  a  very  sound  and  catholic  idea;  a  single 
intercalation  to  rest  it  solidly  on  true  bottom.  It  is 
near  the  end  of  the  first  page,  where  you  make  a 
statement  of  genuine  republican  maxims;  saying, 
"that  the  people  ought  to  possess  as  much  political 
power  as  can  possibly  exist  with  the  order  and 
security  of  society."  Instead  of  this,  I  would  say, 
"that  the  people,  being  the  only  safe  depository  of 
power,  should  exercise  in  person  every  function 
which  their  qualifications  enable  them  to  exercise, 
consistently  with  the  order  and  security  of  society; 
that  we  now  find  them  equal  to  the  election  of  those 
who  shall  be  invested  with  their  executive  and  legis- 
lative powers,  and  to  act  themselves  in  the  judiciary, 
as  judges  in  questions  of  fact;  that  the  range  of 
their  powers  ought  to  be  enlarged,"  etc.  This  gives 
both  the  reason  and  exemplification  of  the  maxim 
you  express,  "that  they  ought  to  possess  as  much 
political  power,"  etc.  I  see  nothing  to  correct  either 
in  your  facts  or  principles. 

You  say  that  in  taking  General  Washington  on 
your  shoulders,  to  bear  him  harmless  through  the 


48  Jefferson's  Works 

federal  coalition,  you  encounter  a  perilous  topic.  I 
do  not  think  so.  You  have  given  the  genuine  history 
of  the  course  of  his  mind  through  the  trying  scenes 
in  which  it  was  engaged,  and  of  the  seductions  by 
which  it  was  deceived,  but  not  depraved.  I  think  I 
knew  General  Washington  intimately  and  thor- 
oughly; and  were  I  called  on  to  delineate  his  char- 
acter, it  should  be  in  terms  like  these. 

His  mind  was  great  and  powerful,  without  being 
of  the  very  first  order;  his  penetration  strong, 
though  not  so  acute  as  that  of  a  Newton,  Bacon, 
or  Locke;  and  as  far  as  he  saw,  no  judgment  was 
ever  sounder.  It  was  slow  in  operation,  being  little 
aided  by  invention  or  imagination,  but  sure  in  con- 
clusion. Hence  the  common  remark  of  his  officers, 
of  the  advantage  he  derived  from  councils  of  war, 
where  hearing  all  suggestions,  he  selected  whatever 
was  best ;  and  certainly  no  general  ever  planned  his 
battles  more  judiciously.  But  if  deranged  during 
the  course  of  the  action,  if  any  member  of  his  plan 
was  dislocated  by  sudden  circumstances,  he  was  slow 
in  re-adjustment.  The  consequence  was,  that  he 
often  failed  in  the  field,  and  rarely  against  an  enemy 
in  station,  as  at  Boston  and  York.  He  was  incapable 
of  fear,  meeting  personal  dangers  with  the  calmest 
unconcern.  Perhaps  the  strongest  feature  in  his 
character  was  prudence,  never  acting  until  every 
circumstance,  every  consideration,  was  maturely 
weighed;  refraining  if  he  saw  a  doubt,  but,  when 
once  decided,  going  through  with  his  purpose,  what- 


Correspondence  4P 

ever  obstacles  opposed.  His  integrity  was  most 
pure,  his  justice  the  most  inflexible  I  have  ever 
known,  no  motives  of  interest  or  consanguinity,  of 
friendship  or  hatred,  being  able  to  bias  his  decision. 
He  was,  indeed,  in  every  sense  of  the  words,  a  wise, 
a  good,  and  a  great  man.  His  temper  was  naturally 
irritable  and  high  toned;  but  reflection  and  reso- 
lution had  obtained  a  firm  and  habitual  ascendency 
over  it.  If  ever,  however,  it  broke  its  bonds,  he 
was  most  tremendous  in  his  wrath.  In  his  expenses 
he  was  honorable,  but  exact;  liberal  in  contributions 
to  whatever  promised  utility;  but  frowning  and 
unyielding  on  all  visionary  projects,  and  all  unworthy 
calls  on  his  charity.  His  heart  was  not  warm  in  its 
affections;  but  he  exactly  calculated  every  man's 
value,  and  gave  him  a  solid  esteem  proportioned 
to  it.  His  person,  you  know,  was  fine,  his  stature 
exactly  what  one  would  wish,  his  deportment  easy, 
erect  and  noble;  the  best  horseman  of  his  age,  and 
the  most  graceful  figure  that  could  be  seen  on  horse- 
back. Although  in  the  circle  of  his  friends,  where  he 
might  be  unreserved  with  safety,  he  took  a  free 
share  in  conversation,  his  colloquial  talents  were  not 
above  mediocrity,  possessing  neither  copiousness  of 
ideas,  nor  fluency  of  words.  In  public,  when  called 
on  for  a  sudden  opinion,  he  was  unready,  short  and 
embarrassed.  Yet  he  wrote  readily,  rather  diffusely, 
in  an  easy  and  correct  style.  This  he  had  acquired 
by  conversation  with  the  world,  for  his  education 
was  merely  reading,  writing  and  common  arithmetic, 

VOL.  XIV — 4 


5°  Jefferson's  Works 

to  which  he  added  surveying  at  a  later  day.  His 
time  was  employed  in  action  chiefly,  reading  little, 
and  that  only  in  agriculture  and  English  history. 
His  correspondence  became  necessarily  extensive, 
and,  with  journalizing  his  agricultural  proceedings, 
occupied  most  of  his  leisure  hours  within  doors.  On 
the  whole,  his  character  was,  in  its  mass,  perfect,  in 
nothing  bad,  in  few  points  indifferent;  and  it  may 
truly  be  said,  that  never  did  nature  and  fortune 
combine  more  perfectly  to  make  a  man  great,  and 
to  place  him  in  the  same  constellation  with  what- 
ever worthies  have  merited  from  man  an  everlasting 
remembrance.  For  his  was  the  singular  destiny  and 
merit,  of  leading  the  armies  of  his  country  success- 
fully through  an  arduous  war,  for  the  establishment 
of  its  independence;  of  conducting  its  councils 
through  the  birth  of  a  government,  new  in  its  forms 
and  principles,  until  it  had  settled  down  into  a  quiet 
and  orderly  train;  and  of  scrupulously  obeying  the 
laws  through  the  whole  of  his  career,  civil  and 
military,  of  which  the  history  of  the  world  furnishes 
no  other  example. 

How,  then,  can  it  be  perilous  for  you  to  take  such 
a  man  on  your  shoulders?  I  am  satisfied  the  great 
body  of  republicans  think  of  him  as  I  do.  We  were, 
indeed,  dissatisfied  with  him  on  his  ratification  of 
the  British  treaty.  But  this  was  short  lived.  We 
knew  his  honesty,  the  wiles  with  which  he  was 
encompassed,  and  that  age  had  already  begun  to 
relax  the  firmness  of  his  purposes;    and  I  am  con- 


Correspondence  51 

vinced  he  is  more  deeply  seated  in  the  love  and 
gratitude  of  the  republicans,  than  in  the  Pharisaical 
homage  of  the  federal  monarchists.  For  he  was  no 
monarchist  from  preference  of  his  judgment.  The 
soundness  of  that  gave  him  correct  views  of  the 
rights  of  man,  and  his  severe  justice  devoted  him  to 
them.  He  has  often  declared  to  me  that  he  con- 
sidered our  new  Constitution  as  an  experiment  on 
the  practicability  of  republican  government,  and 
with  what  dose  of  liberty  man  could  be  trusted  for 
his  own  good;  that  he  was  determined  the  experi- 
ment should  have  a  fair  trial,  and  would  lose  the  last 
drop  of  his  blood  in  support  of  it.  And  these 
declarations  he  repeated  to  me  the  oftener  and  more 
pointedly,  because  he  knew  my  suspicions  of  Colonel 
Hamilton's  views,  and  probably  had  heard  from  him 
the  same  declarations  which  I  had,  to  wit,  "that 
the  British  constitution,  with  its  unequal  representa- 
tion, corruption  and  other  existing  abuses,  was  the 
most  perfect  government  which  had  ever  been  estab- 
lished on  earth,  and  that  a  reformation  of  those 
abuses  would  make  it  an  impracticable  government." 
I  do  believe  that  General  Washington  had  not  a  firm 
confidence  in  the  durability  of  our  government.  He 
was  naturally  distrustful  of  men,  and  inclined  to 
gloomy  apprehensions;  and  I  was  ever  persuaded 
that  a  belief  that  we  must  at  length  end  in  something 
like  a  British  constitution,  had  some  weight  in  his 
adoption  of  the  ceremonies  of  levees,  birthdays, 
pompous  meetings  with  Congress,  and  other  forms 


S2  Jefferson's  Works 

of  the  same  character,  calculated  to  prepare  us 
gradually  for  a  change  which  he  believed  possible, 
and  to  let  it  come  on  with  as  little  shock  as  might 
be  to  the  public  mind. 

These  are  my  opinions  of  General  Washington, 
which  I  would  vouch  at  the  judgment  seat  of  God, 
having  been  formed  on  an  acquaintance  of  thirty 
years.  I  served  with  him  in  the  Virginia  legislature 
from  1769  to  the  Revolutionary  war,  and  again,  a 
short  time  in  Congress,  until  he  left  us  to  take  com- 
mand of  the  army.  During  the  war  and  after  it  we 
corresponded  occasionally,  and  in  the  four  years  of 
my  continuance  in  the  office  of  Secretary  of  State, 
our  intercourse  was  daily,  confidential  and  cordial. 
After  I  retired  from  that  office,  great  and  malignant 
pains  were  taken  by  our  federal  monarchists,  and  not 
entirely  without  effect,  to  make  him  view  me  as  a 
theorist,  holding  French  principles  of  government, 
which  would  lead  infallibly  to  licentiousness  and 
anarchy.  And  to  this  he  listened  the  more  easily, 
from  my  known  disapprobation  of  the  British  treaty. 
I  never  saw  him  afterwards,  or  these  malignant  in- 
sinuations should  have  been  dissipated  before  his 
just  judgment,  as  mists  before  the  sun.  I  felt  on 
his  death,  with  my  countrymen,  that  "  verily  a  great 
man  hath  fallen  this  day  in  Israel." 

More  time  and  recollection  would  enable  me  to  add 
many  other  traits  of  his  character;  but  why  add 
them  to  you  who  knew  him  well?  And  I  cannot 
justify  to  myself  a  longer  detention  of  your  paper. 

Vale,  proprieque  tuumt  me  esse  tibi  persuadeas. 


Correspondence  53 

TO    JOHN    PINTARD,    RECORDING    SECRETARY    OF    THE 
NEW    YORK    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY. 

Monticello,  January  9,   1814. 

Sir, — I  have  duly  received  your  favor  of  Decem- 
ber 2 2d,  informing  me  that  the  New  York  Historical 
Society  had  been  pleased  to  elect  me  an  honorary 
member  of  that  institution.  I  am  entirely  sensible 
of  the  honor  done  me  by  this  election,  and  I  pray  you 
to  become  the  channel  of  my  grateful  acknowledg- 
ments to  the  society.  At  this  distance,  and  at  my 
time  of  life,  I  cannot  but  be  conscious  how  little  it 
will  be  in  my  power  to  further  their  establishment, 
and  that  I  should  be  but  an  unprofitable  member, 
carrying  into  the  institution  indeed,  my  best  wishes 
for  its  success,  and  a  readiness  to  serve  it  on  any 
occasion  which  should  occur.  With  these  acknowl- 
edgments, be  so  good  as  to  accept  for  the  society,  as 
well  as  for  yourself,  the  assurances  of  my  high  respect 
and  consideration. 


TO  SAMUEL  M.  BURNSIDE,  SECRETARY  OF  THE  AMERI- 
CAN   ANTIQUARIAN    SOCIETY. 

Monticello,  January  9,   1814. 

Sir, — I  have  duly  received  your  favor  of  the  13th 
of  December,  informing  me  of  the  institution  of  the 
American  Antiquarian  Society,  and  expressing  its 
disposition  to  honor  me  with  an  admission  into  it, 

and  the  request  of  my  cooperation  in  the  advance- 


54  Jefferson's  Works 

ment  of  its  objects.  No  one  can  be  more  sensible 
of  the  honor  and  the  favor  of  these  dispositions,  and 
I  pray  you  to  have  the  goodness  to  testify  to  them 
all  the  gratitude  I  feel  on  receiving  assurances  of 
them.  There  has  been  a  time  of  life  when  I  should 
have  entered  into  their  views  with  zeal,  and  with  a 
hope  of  not  being  altogether  unuseful.  But,  now 
more  than  septuagenary,  retired  from  the  active 
scenes  and  business  of  life,  I  am  sensible  how  little 
I  can  contribute  to  the  advancement  of  the  objects 
of  their  views;  but  I  shall  certainly,  and  with  great 
pleasure,  embrace  any  occasion  which  shall  occur, 
of  rendering  them  any  services  in  my  power.  With 
these  assurances,  be  so  good  as  to  accept  for  them 
and  for  yourself,  those  of  my  high  respect  and  con- 
sideration. 


TO    DR.    THOMAS    COOPER. 

Monticello,  January  16,   1814. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  November  8th,  if  it  was 
rightly  dated,  did  not  come  to  hand  till  December 
13th,  and  being  absent  on  a  long  journey,  it  has 
remained  unanswered  till  now.  The  copy  of  your 
introductory  lecture  was  received  and  acknowledged 
in  my  letter  of  July  12,  181 2,  with  which  I  sent  you 
Tracy's  first  volume  on  Logic.  Your  Justinian  came 
safely  also,  and  I  have  been  constantly  meaning  to 
acknowledge  it,  but  I  wished,  at  the  same  time,  to 


Correspondence  55 

say  something  more .  I  possessed  Theopilus ' ,  Vinnius ' 
and  Harris'  editions,  but  read  over  your  notes  and 
the  addenda  et  corrigenda,  and  especially  the  parallels 
with  the  English  law,  with  great  satisfaction  and 
edification.  Your  edition  will  be  very  useful  to  our 
lawyers,  some  of  whom  will  need  the  translation  as 
well  as  the  notes.  But  what  I  had  wanted  to  say 
to  you  on  the  subject,  was  that  I  much  regret  that 
instead  of  this  work,  useful  as  it  may  be,  you  had  not 
bestowed  the  same  time  and  research  rather  on  a 
translation  and  notes  on  Bracton,  a  work  which  has 
never  been  performed  for  us,  and  which  I  have  always 
considered  as  one  of  the  greatest  desiderata  in  the 
law.  The  laws  of  England,  in  their  progress  from 
the  earliest  to  the  present  times,  may  be  likened  to 
the  road  of  a  traveller,  divided  into  distinct  stages 
or  resting  places,  at  each  of  which  a  review  is  taken 
of  the  road  passed  over  so  far.  The  first  of  these  was 
Bracton 's  De  le gibus  Anglice;  the  second,  Coke's 
Institutes;  the  third,  the  Abridgment  of  the  law  by 
Matthew  Bacon;  and  the  fourth,  Blackstone's  Com- 
mentaries. Doubtless  there  were  others  before  Brac- 
ton which  have  not  reached  us.  Alfred,  in  the  pref- 
ace to  his  laws,  says  they  were  compiled  from  those 
of  Ina,  Offa,  and  Aethelbert,  into  which,  or  rather 
preceding  them,  the  clergy  have  interpolated  the 
20th,  2i st,  22d,  23d  and  24th  chapters  of  Exodus, 
so  as  to  place  Alfred's  preface  to  what  Was  really 
his,  awkwardly  enough  in  the  body  of  the  work. 
An   interpolation   the  more  glaring,    as   containing 


56  Jefferson's  Works 

laws  expressly  contradicted  by  those  of  Alfred. 
This  pious  fraud  seems  to  have  been  first  noted  by 
Howard,  in  his  Contumes  Anglo  Normandes  (188),  and 
the  pious  judges  of  England  have  had  no  inclination 
to  question  it;  [of  this  disposition  in  these  judges, 
I  could  give  you  a  curious  sample  from  a  note  in  my 
common-place  book,  made  while  I  was  a  student,  but 
it  is  too  long  to  be  now  copied.  Perhaps  I  may  give 
it  to  you  with  some  future  letter].  This  digest  of 
Alfred  of  the  laws  of  the  Heptarchy  into  a  single  code, 
common  to  the  whole  kingdom,  by  him  first  reduced 
into  one,  was  probably  the  birth  of  what  is  called  the 
common  law.  He  has  been  styled,  "  Magnus  Juris 
Anglicani  Conditor;''  and  his  code,  the  Dom-Dec, 
or  doom-book.  That  which  was  made  afterwards 
under  Edward  the  Confessor,  was  but  a  restoration 
of  Alfred's,  with  some  intervening  alterations.  And 
this  was  the  code  which  the  English  so  often,  under 
the  Norman  princes,  petitioned  to  have  restored  to 
them.  But,  all  records  previous  to  the  Magna  Charta 
having  been  early  lost,  Bracton's  is  the  first  digest  of 
the  whole  body  of  law  which  has  come  down  to  us 
entire.  What  materials  for  it  existed  in  his  time  we 
know  not,  except  the  unauthoritative  collections  of 
Lambard  and  Wilkins,  and  the  treatise  of  Glanville, 
tempore  H.  2.  Bracton's  is  the  more  valuable, 
because  being  written  a  very  few  years  after  the 
Magna  Charta,  which  commences  what  is  called  the 
statute  law,  it  gives  us  the  state  of  the  common  law 
in  its  ultimate  form,  and  exactly  at  the  point  of  divi- 


Correspondence  57 

sion  between  the  common  and  statute  law.  It  is  a 
most  able  work,  complete  in  its  matter  and  luminous 
in  its  method. 

2.  The  statutes  which  introduced  changes  began 
now  to  be  preserved ;  applications  of  the  law  to  new 
cases  by  the  courts,  began  soon  after  to  be  reported 
in  the  year-books,  these  to  be  methodized  and 
abridged  by  Fitzherbert,  Broke,  Rolle,  and  others; 
individuals  continued  the  business  of  reporting; 
particular  treatises  were  written  by  able  men,  and 
all  these,  by  the  time  of  Lord  Coke,  had  formed  so 
large  a  mass  of  matter  as  to  call  for  a  new  digest,  to 
bring  it  within  reasonable  compass.  This  he  under^ 
took  in  his  Institutes,  harmonizing  all  the  decisions 
and  opinions  which  were  reconcilable,  and  rejecting 
those  not  so.  This  work  is  executed  with  so  much 
learning  and  judgment,  that  I  do  not  recollect  that 
a  single  position  in  it  has  ever  been  judicially  denied. 
And  although  the  work  loses  much  of  its  value  by  its 
chaotic  form,  it  may  still  be  considered  as  the  funda- 
mental code  of  the  English  law. 

3.  The  same  processes  re-commencing  of  statutory 
changes,  new  divisions,  multiplied  reports,  and  spe- 
cial treatises,  a  new  accumulation  had  formed,  calling 
for  new  reduction,  by  the  time  of  Matthew  Bacon. 
His  work,  therefore,  although  not  pretending  to  the 
textual  merit  of  Bracton's,  or  Coke's,  was  very 
acceptable.  His  alphabetical  arrangement,  indeed, 
although  better  than  Coke's  jumble,  was  far  inferior 
to  Bracton's.     But  it  was  a  sound  digest  of  the 


5$  Jefferson's  Works 

materials  existing  on  the  several  alphabetical  heads 
under  which  he  arranged  them.  His  work  was  not 
admitted  as  authority  in  Westminster  Hall ;  yet  it 
was  the  manual  of  every  judge  and  lawyer,  and,  what 
better  proves  its  worth,  has  been  its  daily  growth  in 
the  general  estimation. 

4.  A  succeeding  interval  of  changes  and  additions 
of  matter  produced  Blackstone's  Commentaries,  the 
most  lucid  in  arrangement  which  had  yet  been  writ- 
ten, correct  in  its  matter,  classical  in  style,  and  right- 
fully taking  its  place  by  the  side  of  the  Justinian  In- 
stitutes. But,  like  them  it  was  only  an  elementary 
book.  It  did  not  present  all  the  subjects  of  the  law 
in  all  their  details.  It  still  left  it  necessary  to  recur 
to  the  original  works  of  which  it  was  the  summary. 
The  great  mass  of  law  books  from  which  it  was  ex- 
tracted, was  still  to  be  consulted  on  minute  investi- 
gations. It  wanted,  therefore,  a  species  of  merit 
which  entered  deeply  into  the  value  of  those  of  Brac- 
ton,  Coke  and  Bacon.  They  had  in  effect  swept  the 
shelves  of  all  the  materials  preceding  them.  To  give 
Blackstone,  therefore,  a  full  measure  of  value, 
another  work  is  still  wanting,  to  wit :  to  incorporate 
with  his  principles  a  compend  of  the  particular 
cases  subsequent  to  Bacon,  of  which  they  are  the 
essence.  This  might  be  done  by  printing  under 
his  text  a  digest  like  Bacon's  continued  to  Black- 
stone's  time.  It  would  enlarge  his  work,  and  in- 
crease its  value  peculiarly  to  us,  because  just  there 
we  break  off  from  the  parent  stem  of  the  English 


Correspondence  59 

law,  unconcerned  in  any  of  its  subsequent  changes 
or  decisions. 

Of  the  four  digests  noted,  the  three  last  are  pos- 
sessed and  understood  by  every  one.  But  the  first, 
the  fountain  of  them  all,  remains  in  its  technical 
Latin,  abounding  in  terms  antiquated,  obsolete,  and 
unintelligible  but  to  the  most  learned  of  the  body  of 
lawyers.  To  give  it  to  us  then  in  English,  with  a 
glossary  of  its  old  terms,  is  a  work  for  which  I  know 
nobody  but  yourself  possessing  the  necessary  learn- 
ing and  industry.  The  latter  part  of  it  would  be 
furnished  to  your  hand  from  the  glossaries  of  Wilkins, 
Lambard,  Spelman,  Somner  in  the  X.  Scriptores,  the 
index  of  Coke  and  the  law  dictionaries.  Could  not 
such  an  undertaking  be  conveniently  associated  with 
your  new  vocation  of  giving  law  lectures  ?  I  pray  you 
to  think  of  it.1  A  further  operation  indeed,  would  still 
be  desirable.  To  take  up  the  doctrines  of  Bracton, 
separatim  et  seriatim,  to  give  their  history  through 
the  periods  of  Lord  Coke  and  Bacon,  down  to  Black- 
stone,  to  show  when  and  how  some  of  them  have 
become  extinct,  the  successive  alterations  made  in 
others,  and  their  progress  to  the  state  in  which  Black- 
stone  found  them.  But  this  might  be  a  separate 
work,  left  for  your  greater  leisure  or  for  some  future 
pen.2 

I  have  long  had  under  contemplation,  and  been 
collecting  materials  for  the  plan  of  an  university  in 

1  Bracton  has  at  length  been  translated  in  English. 

2  This  has  been  done  by  Reeves,  in  his  History  of  the  Law. 


60  JeffersonVWorks 

Virginia  which  should  comprehend  all  the  sciences 
useful  to  us,  and  none  others.     The  general  idea  is 
suggested  in  the  Notes  on  Virginia,  Qu.   14.     This 
would  probably  absorb  the  functions  of  William  and 
Mary  College,  and  transfer  them  to  a  healthier  and 
more  central  position :   perhaps  to  the  neighborhood 
of  this  place.     The  long  and  lingering  decline  of  Wil- 
liam and  Mary,  the  death  of  its  last  president,  its 
location  and  climate,  force  on  us  the  wish  for  a  new 
institution  more  convenient  to  our  country  generally, 
and  better  adapted  to  the  present  state  of  science. 
I  have  been  told  there  will  be  an  effort  in  the  present 
session  of  our  legislature,  to  effect  such  an  establish- 
ment.    I  confess,  however,  that  I  have  not  great 
confidence  that  this  will  be  done.     Should  it  happen, 
it  would  offer  places  worthy  of  you,  and  of  which  you 
are  worthy.     It  might  produce,  too,  a  bidder  for  the 
apparatus  and  library  of  Dr.  Priestley,  to  which  they 
might  add  mine  on  their  own  terms.     This  consists 
of  about  seven  or  eight  thousand  volumes,  the  best 
chosen  collection  of  its  size  probably  in  America,  and 
containing  a  great  mass  of  what  is  most  rare  and 
valuable,  and  especially  of  what  relates  to  America. 
You  have  given  us,  in  your  Emporium,  Bollman's 
medley  on  Political  Economy.     It  is  the  work  of  one 
who  sees  a  little  of  everything,  and  the  whole  of  noth- 
ing ;  and  were  it  not  for  your  own  notes  on  it,  a  sen- 
tence of  which  throws  more  just  light  on  the  subject 
than  all  his  pages,  we  should  regret  the  place  it  occu- 
pies of  more  useful  matter.     The  bringing  our  coun- 


Correspondence  6 1 

trymen  to  a  sound  comparative  estimate  of  the  vast 
value  of  internal  commerce,  and  the  disproportionate 
importance  of  what  is  foreign,  is  the  most  salutary 
effort  which  can  be  made  for  the  prosperity  of  these 
States,  which  are  entirely  misled  from  their  true 
interests  by  the  infection  of  English  prejudices,  and 
illicit  attachments  to  English  interests  and  connec- 
tions. I  look  to  you  for  this  effort.  It  would  fur- 
nish a  valuable  chapter  for  every  Emporium ;  but  I 
would  rather  see  it  also  in  the  newspapers,  which 
alone  find  access  to  every  one. 

Everything  predicted  by  the  enemies  of  banks, 
in  the  beginning,  is  now  coming  to  pass.  We  are 
to  be  ruined  now  by  the  deluge  of  bank  paper,  as  we 
were  formerly  by  the  old  Continental  paper.  It  is 
cruel  that  such  revolutions  in  private  fortunes  should 
be  at  the  mercy  of  avaricious  adventurers,  who, 
instead  of  employing  their  capital,  if  any  they  have, 
in  manufactures,  commerce,  and  other  useful  pur- 
suits, make  it  an  instrument  to  burden  all  the  inter- 
changes of  property  with  their  swindling  profits, 
profits  which  are  the  price  of  no  useful  industry  of 
theirs.  Prudent  men  must  be  on  their  guard  in  this 
game  of  Robin's  alive,  and  take  care  that  the  spark 
does  not  extinguish  in  their  hands.  I  am  an  enemy 
to  all  banks  discounting  bills  or  notes  for  anything 
but  coin.  But  our  whole  country  is  so  fascinated 
by  this  Jack-lantern  wealth,  that  they  will  not  stop 
short  of  its  total  and  fatal  explosion.1 
1  This  accor4ingly  took  place  four  years  after. 


6-2  Jefferson's  Works 

Have  you  seen  the  memorial  to  Congress  on  the 
subject  of  Oliver  Evans'  patent  rights?  The  memo- 
rialists have  published  in  it  a  letter  of  mine  contain- 
ing some  views  on  this  difficult  subject.  But  I  have 
opened  it  no  further  than  to  raise  the  questions  be- 
longing to  it.  I  wish  we  could  have  the  benefit  of 
your  lights  on  these  questions.  The  abuse  of  the 
frivolous  patents  is  likely  to  cause  more  inconven- 
ience than  is  countervailed  by  those  really  useful. 
We  know  not  to  what  uses  we  may  apply  implements 
which  have  been  in  our  hands  before  the  birth  of  our 
government,  and  even  the  discovery  of  America. 
The  memorial  is  a  thin  pamphlet,  printed  by  Robin- 
son of  Baltimore,  a  copy  of  which  has  been  laid  on 
the  desk  of  every  member  of  Congress. 

You  ask  if  it  is  a  secret  who  wrote  the  commentary 
on  Montesquieu?  It  must  be  a  secret  during  the 
author's  life.  I  may  only  say  at  present  that  it  was 
written  by  a  Frenchman,  that  the  original  MS.  in 
French  is  now  in  my  possession,  that  it  was  trans- 
lated and  edited  by  General  Duane,  and  that  I  should 
rejoice  to  see  it  printed  in  its  original  tongue,  if  any 
one  would  undertake  it.  No  book  can  suffer  more 
by  translation,  because  of  the  severe  correctness  of 
the  original  in  the  choice  of  its  terms.  I  have  taken 
measures  for  securing  to  the  author  his  justly-earned 
fame,  whenever  his  death  or  other  circumstances 
may  render  it  safe  for  him.  Like  you,  I  do  not  agree 
with  him  in  everything,  and  have  had  some  corre- 
spondence with  him  on  particular  points.     But  on 


Correspondence  63 

the  whole,  it  is  a  most  valuable  work,  one  which  I 
think  will  form  an  epoch  in  the  science  of  govern- 
ment, and  which  I  wish  to  see  in  the  hands  of  every 
American  student,  as  the  elementary  and  funda- 
mental institute  of  that  important  branch  of  human 
science.1 

I  have  never  seen  the  answer  of  Governor  Strong 
to  the  judges  of  Massachusetts,  to  which  you  allude, 
nor  the  Massachusetts  reports  in  which  it  is  con- 
tained. But  I  am  sure  you  join  me  in  lamenting  the 
general  defection  of  lawyers  and  judges,  from  the 
free  principles  of  government.  I  am  sure  they  do 
not  derive  this  degenerate  spirit  from  the  father  of 
our  science,  Lord  Coke.  But  it  may  be  the  reason 
why  they  cease  to  read  him,  and  the  source  of  what 
are  now  called  "  Blackstone  lawyers." 

Go  on  in  all  your  good  works,  without  regard  to 
the  eye  "  of  suspicion  and  distrust  with  which  you 
may  be  viewed  by  some,"  and  without  being  weary 
in  well  doing,  and  be  assured  that  you  are  justly 
estimated  by  the  impartial  mass  of  our  fellow  citi- 
zens, and  by  none  more  than  myself. 


TO    OLIVER    EVANS,    ESQ. 

Monticello,  January  16,   1814. 

Sir, — In  August  last  I  received  a  letter  from  Mr. 
Isaac  McPherson  of  Baltimore,  on  the  controversies 

1  The  original  has  since  been  published  in  France,  with  the  name  of 
its  author,  M.  Destutt  de  Tracy. 


64  Jefferson's  Works 

subsisting  between  yourself  and  some  persons  in  that 
quarter  interested  in  mills.  These  related  to  your 
patent  rights  for  the  elevators,  conveyers,  and  hopper- 
boys  ;  and  he  requested  any  information  I  could  give 
him  on  that  subject.  Having  been  formerly  a  mem- 
ber of  the  patent  board,  as  long  as  it  existed,  and 
bestowed  in  the  execution  of  that  trust  much  con- 
sideration on  the  questions  belonging  to  it,  I  thought 
it  an  act  of  justice,  and  indeed  of  duty,  to  communi- 
cate such  facts  and  principles  as  had  occurred  to  me 
on  the  subject.  I  therefore  wrote  the  letter  of  Au- 
gust 13,  which  is  the  occasion  of  your  favor  to  me  of 
the  7th  instant,  just  now  received,  but  without  the 
report  of  the  case  tried  in  the  circuit  court  of  Mary- 
land, or  your  memorial  to  Congress,  mentioned  in 
the  letter  as  accompanying  it.  You  request  an 
answer  to  your  letter,  which  my  respect  and  esteem 
for  you  would  of  themselves  have  dictated;  but  I 
am  not  certain  that  I  distinguish  the  particular  points 
to  which  you  wish  a  specific  answer.  You  agree  in 
the  letter,  that  the  chain  of  buckets  and  Archimedes' 
screw  are  old  inventions;  that  every  one  had,  and 
still  has,  a  right  to  use  them  and  the  hopper-boy,  if 
that  also  existed  previously,  in  the  forms  and  con- 
structions known  before  your  patent;  and  that, 
therefore,  you  have  neither  a  grant  nor  claim,  to  the 
exclusive  right  of  using  elevators,  conveyers,  hopper- 
boys,  or  drills,  but  only  of  the  improved  elevator, 
the  improved  hopper-boy,  etc.  In  this,  then,  we 
are  entirely  agreed,  and  your  right  to  your  own  im- 


Correspondence  65 

provements  in  the  construction  of  these  machines 
is  explicitly  recognized  in  my  letter.  I  think, 
however,  that  your  letter  claims  something  more, 
although  it  is  not  so  explicitly  defined  as  to  convey 
to  my  mind  the  precise  idea  which  you  perhaps 
meant  to  express.  Your  letter  says  that  your  patent 
is  for  your  improvement  in  the  manufacture  of  flour 
by  the  application  of  certain  principles,  and  of  such 
machinery  as  will  carry  those  principles  into  opera- 
tion, whether  of  the  improved  elevator,  improved 
hopper-boy,  or  (without  being  confined  to  them)  of 
any  machinery  known  and  free  to  the  public.  I  can 
conceive  how  a  machine  may  improve  the  manufac- 
ture of  flour ;  but  not  how  a  principle  abstracted  from 
any  machine  can  do  it.  It  must  then  be  the  machine, 
and  the  principle  of  that  machine,  which  is  secured 
to  you  by  your  patent.  Recurring  now  to  the  words 
of  your  definition,  do  they  mean  that,  while  all  are 
free  to  use  the  old  string  of  buckets,  and  Archimedes' 
screw  for  the  purposes  to  which  they  had  been  for- 
merly applied,  you  alone  have  the  exclusive  right  to 
apply  them  to  the  manuf  acture  of  flour  ?  that  no  one 
has  a  right  to  apply  his  old  machines  to  all  the  pur- 
poses of  which  they  are  susceptible?  that  every  one, 
for  instance,  who  can  apply  the  hoe,  the  spade,  or  the 
axe  to  any  purpose  to  which  they  have  not  been 
before  applied,  may  have  a  patent  for  the  exclusive 
right  to  that  application  ?  and  may  exclude  all  others, 
under  penalties,  from  so  using  their  hoe,  spade,  or 
axe?  If  this  be  the  meaning,  my  opinion  that  the 
vol.  XIV — $ 


66  Jefferson's  Works 

legislature  never  meant  by  the  patent  law  to  sweep 
away  so  extensively  the  rights  of  their  constituents, 
to  environ  everything  they  touch  with  snares,  is 
expressed  in  the  letter  of  August  13,  from  which  I 
have  nothing  to  retract,  nor  aught  to  add  but  the 
observation  that  if  a  new  application  of  our  old 
machines  be  a  ground  of  monopoly,  the  patent  law 
will  take  from  us  much  more  good  than  it  will  give. 
Perhaps  it  may  mean  another  thing,  that  while  every 
one  has  a  right  to  the  distinct  and  separate  use  of  the 
buckets,  the  screw,  the  hopper-boy,  in  their  old  forms, 
the  patent  gives  you  the  exclusive  right  to  combine 
their  uses  on  the  same  object.  But  if  we  have  a  right 
to  use  three  things  separately,  I  see  nothing  in  reason, 
or  in  the  patent  law,  which  forbids  our  using  them  all 
together.  A  man  has  a  right  to  use  a  saw,  an  axe, 
a  plane,  separately;  may  he  not  combine  their  uses 
on  the  same  piece  of  wood?  He  has  a  right  to  use 
his  knife  to  cut  his  meat,  a  fork  to  hold  it ;  may  a 
patentee  take  from  him  the  right  to  combine  then- 
use  on  the  same  subject?  Such  a  law,  instead  of 
enlarging  our  conveniences,  as  was  intended,  would 
most  fearfully  abridge  them,  and  crowd  us  by 
monopolies  out  of  the  use  of  the  things  we  have. 

I  have  no  particular  interest,  however,  in  these 
questions,  nor  any  inclination  to  be  the  advocate 
of  either  party ;  and  I  hope  I  shall  be  excused  from 
it.  I  shall  acquiesce  cheerfully  in  the  decisions  in 
your  favor  by  those  to  whom  the  laws  have  confided 
them,  without  blaming  the  other  party  for  being 


Correspondence  67 

unwilling,  when  so  new  a  branch  of  science  has  been 
recently  engrafted  on  our  jurisprudence,  one  with 
which  its  professors  have  till  now  had  no  call  to  make 
themselves  acquainted,  one  bearing  little  analogy 
to  their  professional  educations  or  pursuits.  That 
they  should  be  unwilling,  I  say,  to  admit  that  one 
or  two  decisions,  before  inferior  and  local  tribunals, 
before  the  questions  shall  have  been  repeatedly  and 
maturely  examined  in  all  their  bearings,  before  the 
cases  shall  have  presented  themselves  in  all  their 
forms  and  attitudes,  before  a  sanction  by  the  greater 
part  of  the  judges  on  the  most  solemn  investigations, 
and  before  the  industry  and  intelligence  of  many 
defendants  may  have  excited  to  efforts  for  the  vindi- 
cation of  the  general  rights  of  the  citizen;  that  one 
or' other  of  the  precedents  should  forever  foreclose 
the  whole  of  a  new  subject. 

To  the  publication  of  this  answer  with  your  letter, 
as  you  request,  I  have  no  objection.  I  wish  right  to 
be  done  to  all  parties,  and  to  yourself,  particularly 
and  personally,  the  just  rewards  of  genius;  and  I 
tender  you  the  assurances  of  my  great  esteem  and 
respect. 


TO   JOSEPH    C.    CABELL,    ESQ. 

Monticello,  January  17,   1814. 
Dear  Sir, — In  your  last  letter  to  me  you  expressed 
a  desire  to  look  into  the  question  whether,  by  the 
laws  of  nature,  one  generation  of  men  can,  by  any 


68  Jefferson's  Works 

act  of  theirs,  bind  those  which  are  to  follow  them? 
I  say,  by  the  laws  of  nature,  there  being  between 
generation  and  generation,  as  between  nation  and 
nation,  no  other  obligatory  law ;  and  you  requested 
to  see  what  I  had  said  on  the  subject  to  Mr.  Eppes, 
I  enclose,  for  your  own  perusal,  therefore,  three  letters 
which  I  wrote  to  him  on  the  course  of  our  finances, 
which  embrace  the  question  before  stated.  When 
I  wrote  the  first,  I  had  no  thought  of  following  it  by 
a  second.  I  was  led  to  that  by  his  subsequent  re- 
quest, and  after  the  second  I  was  induced,  in  a  third, 
to  take  up  the  subject  of  banks,  by  the  communica- 
tion of  a  proposition  to  be  laid  before  Congress  for 
the  establishment  of  a  new  bank.  I  mention  this 
to  explain  the  total  absence  of  order  in  these  letters 
as  a  whole.  I  have  said  above  that  they  are  sent  for 
your  own  perusal,  not  meaning  to  debar  any  use  of 
the  matter,  but  only  that  my  name  may  in  nowise  be 
connected  with  it.  I  am  too  desirous  of  tranquillity 
to  bring  such  a  nest  of  hornets  on  me  as  the  fraterni- 
ties of  banking  companies,  and  this  infatuation  of 
banks  is  a  torrent  which  it  would  be  a  folly  for  me 
to  get  into  the  way  of.  I  see  that  it  must  take  its 
course,  until  actual  ruin  shall  awaken  us  from  its 
delusions.  Until  the  gigantic  banking  propositions 
of  this  winter  had  made  their  appearance  in  the  dif- 
ferent legislatures,  I  had  hoped  that  the  evil  might 
still  be  checked;  but  I  see  now  that  it  is  desperate, 
and  that  we  must  fold  our  arms  and  go  to  the  bottom 
with  the  ship.  .  I  had  been  in  hopes  that  good  old 


Correspondence  69 

Virginia,  not  yet  so  far  embarked  as  her  northern 
sisters,  would  have  set  the  example  this  winter,  of 
beginning  the  process  of  cure,  by  passing  a  law  that, 
after  a  certain  time,  suppose  of  six  months,  no  bank 
bill  of  less  than  ten  dollars  should  be  permitted. 
That  after  some  other  reasonable  term,  there  should 
be  uone  less  than  twenty  dollars,  and  so  on,  until 
those  only  should  be  left  in  circulation  whose  size 
would  be  above  the  common  transactions  of  any  but 
merchants.  This  would  ensure  to  us  an  ordinary 
circulation  of  metallic  money,  and  would  reduce  the 
quantum  of  paper  within  the  bounds  of  moderate 
mischief.  And  it  is  the  only  way  in  which  the  reduc- 
tion can  be  made  without  a  shock  to  private  fortunes. 
A  sudden  stoppage  of  this  trash,  either  by  law  or  its 
own  worthlessness,  would  produce  confusion  and 
ruin.  Yet  this  will  happen  by  its  own  extinction, 
if  left  to  itself.  Whereas,  by  a  salutary  interposition 
of  the  legislature,  it  may  be  withdrawn  insensibly 
and  safely.  Such  a  mode  of  doing  it,  too,  would  give 
less  alarm  to  the  bankholders,  the  discreet  part  of 
whom  must  wish  to  see  themselves  secured  by  some 
circumscription.  It  might  be  asked  what  we  should 
do  for  change?  The  banks  must  provide  it,  first  to 
pay  off  their  five-dollar  bills,  next  their  ten-dollar 
bills  and  so  on,  and  they  ought  to  provide  it  to  lessen 
the  evils  of  their  institution.  But  I  now  give  up  all 
hope.  After  producing  the  same  revolutions  in  pri- 
vate fortunes  as  the  old  Continental  paper  did,  it  will 
die  like  that,  adding  a  total  incapacity  to  raise  re- 
sources for  the  war. 


7°  Jefferson's  Works 

Withdrawing  myself  within  the  shell  of  our  own 
State,  I  have  long  contemplated  a  division  of  it  into 
hundreds  or  wards,  as  the  most  fundamental  measure 
for  securing  good  government,  and  for  instilling  the 
principles  and  exercise  of  self-government  into  every 
fibre  of  every  member  of  our  commonwealth.  But 
the  details  are  too  long  for  a  letter,  and  must  be  the 
subject  of  conversation,  whenever  I  shall  have  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  you.  It  is  for  some  of  you  young 
legislators  to  immortalize  yourselves  by  laying  this 
stone  as  the  basis  of  our  political  edifice. 

I  must  ask  the  favor  of  an  early  return  of  the 
enclosed  papers,  of  which  I  have  no  copy.  Ever 
affectionately  yours. 


TO   R.    M.    PATTERSON,    SECRETARY   OF   THE   AMERICAN 
PHILOSOPHICAL    SOCIETY. 

Monticello,  January  20,   1814. 

Sir, — I  have  duly  received  your  favor  of  the 
7th,  informing  me  that  the  American  Philosophical 
Society,  at  their  meeting  of  that  day,  had  been 
pleased  unanimously  to  elect  me  as  President  of 
the  Society.  I  receive  with  just  sensibility  this 
proof  of  their  continued  good  will,  and  pray  you 
to  assure  them  of  my  gratitude  for  these  favors,  of 
my  devotedness  to  their  service,  and  the  pleasure 
with  which  at  all  times  I  should  in  any  way  be 
made  useful  to  them. 


Correspondence  7T 

For  yourself  be  pleased  to  accept  the  assurance 
of  my  great  esteem  and  respect. 


TO   JOHN    ADAMS. 

Monticello,  January  24,  1814. 

Dear  Sir, — I  have  great  need  of  the  indulgence 
so  kindly  extended  to  me  in  your  favor  of  December 
25,  of  permitting  me  to  answer  your  friendly  letters 
at  my  leisure.  My  frequent  and  long  absences  from 
home  are  a  first  cause  of  tardiness  in  my  correspond- 
ence, and  a  second  the  accumulation  of  business 
during  my  absence,  some  of  which  imperiously 
commands  first  attentions.  I  am  now  in  arrear  to 
you  for  your  letters  of  November  12,  14,  16,  Decem- 
ber 3,  19,  25. 

3|*  3p  *f+  ^*  f*  *f*  3|%  3^5  2g* 

You  ask  me  if  I  have  ever  seen  the  work  of  J.  W. 
Goethe,  Schriften?  Never;  nor  did  the  question 
ever  occur  to  me  before,  where  get  we  the  ten  com- 
mandments? The  book  indeed  gives  them  to  us 
verbatim,  but  where  did  it  get  them?  For  itself 
tells  us  they  were  written  by  the  finger  of  God  on 
tables  of  stone,  which  were  destroyed  by  Moses; 
it  specifies  those  on  the  second  set  of  tables  in 
different  form  and  substance,  but  still  without  say- 
ing how  the  others  were  recovered.  But  the  whole 
history  of  these  books  is  so  defective  and  doubtful, 
that  it  seems  vain  to  attempt  minute  inquiry  into 


7*  Jeftefs^fTWorks 

it;  and  such  tricks  have  been  played  with  their 
text,  and  with  the  texts  of  other  books  relating  to 
them,  that  we  have  a  right  from  that  cause  to 
entertain  much  doubt  what  parts  of  them  are  genu- 
ine. In  the  New  Testament  there  is  internal  evi- 
dence that  parts  of  it  have  proceeded  from  an 
extraordinary  man;  and  that  other  parts  are  of 
the  fabric  of  very  inferior  minds.  It  is  as  easy 
to  separate  those  parts,  as  to  pick  out  diamonds 
from  dunghills.  The  matter  of  the  first  was  such 
as  would  be  preserved  in  the  memory  of  the  hearers, 
and  handed  on  by  tradition  for  a  long  time;  the 
latter  such  stuff  as  might  be  gathered  up,  for  im- 
bedding it,  anywhere,  and  at  any  time.  I  have 
nothing  of  Vives,  or  Budaeus,  and  little  of  Erasmus. 
If  the  familiar  histories  of  the  Saints,  the  want  of 
which  they  regret,  would  have  given  us  the  histories 
of  those  tricks  which  these  writers  acknowledge  to 
have  been  practised,  and  of  the  lies  they  agree  have 
been  invented  for  the  sake  of  religion,  I  join  them 
in  their  regrets.  These  would  be  the  only  parts  of 
their  histories  worth  reading.  It  is  not  only  the 
sacred  volumes  they  have  thus  interpolated,  gutted, 
and  falsified,  but  the  works  of  others  relating  to 
them,  and  even  the  laws  of  the  land.  We  have  a 
curious  instance  of  one  of  these  pious  frauds  in  the 
laws  of  Alfred.  He  composed,  you  know,  from 
the  laws  of  the  Heptarchy,  a  digest  for  the  govern- 
ment of  the  United  Kingdom,  and  in  his  preface  to 
that  work  he  tells  us  expressly  the  sources  from 


Correspondence  73 

which  he  drew  it,  to  wit,  the  laws  of  Ina,  of  Offa 
and  Aethelbert  (not  naming  the  Pentateuch).  But 
his  pious  interpolator,  very  awkwardly,  premises 
to  his  work  four  chapters  of  Exodus  (from  the 
20th  to  the  23d)  as  a  part  of  the  laws  of  the  land; 
so  that  Alfred's  preface  is  made  to  stand  in  the 
body  of  the  work.  Our  judges,  too,  have  lent  a 
ready  hand  to  further  these  frauds,  and  have  been 
willing  to  lay  the  yoke  of  their  own  opinions  on 
the  necks  of  others;  to  extend  the  coercions  of 
municipal  law  to  the  dogmas  of  their  religion,  by 
declaring  that  these  make  a  part  of  the  law  of  the 
land.  In  the  Year-Book  34,  H.  6,  p.  38,  in  Quare 
impedit,  where  the  question  was  how  far  the  com- 
mon law  takes  notice  of  the  ecclesiastical  law,  Prisot, 
Chief  Justice,  in  the  course  of  his  argument,  says, 
"A  tiels  leis  que  ils  de  seint  eglise  ont,  en  ancien 
scripture,  covient  a  nous  a  donner  credence;  car 
ces  common  luy  sur  quels  touts  manners  leis  sont 
fondes;  et  auxy,  sin,  nous  sumus  obliges  de  canustre 
lour  esy  de  saint  eglise,"  etc.  Finch  begins  the  busi- 
ness of  falsification  by  mistranslating  and  misstat- 
ing the  words  of  Prisot  thus:  "to  such  laws  of  the 
church  as  have  warrant  in  Holy  Scripture  our  law 
giveth  credence."  Citing  the  above  case  and  the 
words  of  Prisot  in  the  margin,  Finch's  law,  B.  1,  c. 
3,  here  then  we  find  ancien  scripture,  ancient  writing, 
translated  "holy  scripture."  This,  Wingate,  in 
1658,  erects  into  a  maxim  of  law  in  the  very  words 
of  Finch,  but  citing  Prisot  and  not  Finch.     And 


74  Jefferson's  Works 

Sheppard,  tit.  Religion,  in  1675  laying  it  down  in 
the  same  words  of  Finch,  quotes  the  Year-Book, 
Finch  and  Wingate.  Then  comes  Sir  Matthew 
Hale,  in  the  case  of  the  King  v.  Taylor,  1  Ventr. 
293,  3  Keb.  607,  and  declares  that  ''Christianity 
is  part  and  parcel  of  the  laws  of  England."  Citing 
nobody,  and  resting  it,  with  his  judgment  against 
the  witches,  on  his  own  authority,  which  indeed 
was  sound  and  good  in  all  cases  into  which  no 
superstition  or  bigotry  could  enter.  Thus  strength- 
ened, the  court  in  1728,  in  the  King  v.  Woolston, 
would  not  suffer  it  to  be  questioned  whether  to 
write  against  Christianity  was  punishable  at  com- 
mon law,  saying  it  had  been  so  settled  by  Hale 
in  Taylor's  case,  2  Stra.  834.  Wood,  therefore, 
409,  without  scruple,  lays  down  as  a  principle,  that 
all  blaspheming  and  profaneness  are  offences  at 
the  common  law,  and  cites  Strange.  Blackstone, 
in  1763,  repeats,  in  the  words  of  Sir  Matthew  Hale, 
that  "Christianity  is  part  of  the  laws  of  England," 
citing  Ventris  and  Strange,  ubi  supra.  And  Lord 
Mansfield,  in  the  case  of  the  Chamberlain  of  London 
v.  Evans,  in  1767,  qualifying  somewhat  the  position, 
says  that  "the  essential  principles  of  revealed 
religion  are  part  of  the  common  law."  Thus  we 
find  this  string  of  authorities  all  hanging  by  one 
another  on  a  single  hook,  a  mistranslation  by  Finch 
of  the  words  of  Prisot,  or  on  nothing.  For  all  quote 
Prisot,  or  one  another,  or  nobody.  Thus  Finch 
misquotes  Prisot;   Wingate  also,  but  using  Finch's. 


Correspondence  75 

words;  Sheppard  quotes  Prisot,  Finch  and  Wingate; 
Hale  cites  nobody;  the  court  in  Woolston's  case 
cite  Hale;  Wood  cites  Woolston's  case;  Blackstone 
that  and  Hale,  and  Lord  Mansfield  volunteers  his 
own  ipse  dixit.  And  who  now  can  question  but 
that  the  whole  Bible  and  Testament  are  a  part 
of  the  common  law?  And  that  Connecticut,  in 
her  blue  laws,  laying  it  down  as  a  principle  that 
the  laws  of  God  should  be  the  laws  of  their  land, 
except  where  their  own  contradicted  them,  did 
anything  more  than  express,  with  a  salvo,  what 
the  English  judges  had  less  cautiously  declared 
without  any  restriction?  And  what,  I  dare  say, 
our  cunning  Chief  Justice  would  swear  to,  and  find 
as  many  sophisms  to  twist  it  out  of  the  general 
terms  of  our  declarations  of  rights,  and  even  the 
stricter  text  of  the  Virginia  "act  for  the  freedom 
of  religion,"  as  he  did  to  twist  Burr's  neck  out  of 
the  halter  of  treason.  May  we  not  say  then  with 
Him  who  was  all  candor  and  benevolence,  "woe 
unto  you,  ye  lawyers,  for  ye  lade  men  with  burdens 
grievous  to  bear." 

I  think  with  you,  that  Priestley,  in  his  comparison 
of  the  doctrines  of  philosophy  and  revelation,  did 
not  do  justice  to  the  undertaking.  But  he  felt 
himself  pressed  by  the  hand  of  death.  Enfield 
has  given  us  a  more  distinct  account  of  the  ethics 
of  the  ancient  philosophers;  but  the  great  work 
of  which  Enfield's  is  an  abridgment,  Brucker's 
History    of    Philosophy,    is    the    treasure    which    I 


76  Jefferson's  Works 

would  wish  to  possess,  as  a  book  of  reference  or 
of  special  research  only,  for  who  could  read  six 
volumes  quarto,  of  one  thousand  pages  each, 
closely  printed,  of  modern  Latin?  Your  account 
of  D'Argens'  (Eileus  makes  me  wish  for  him  also. 
(Eileus  furnishes  a  fruitful  text  for  a  sensible  and 
learned  commentator.  The  Abbe  Batteaux,  which 
I  have,  is  a  meagre  thing. 

You  surprise  me  with  the  account  you  give  of 
the  strength  of  family  distinction  still  existing  in 
your  State.  With  us  it  is  so  totally  extinguished, 
that  not  a  spark  of  it  is  to  be  found  but  lurking 
in  the  hearts  of  some  of  our  old  tories;  but  all 
bigotries  hang  to  one  another,  and  this  in  the  East- 
ern States  hangs,  as  I  suspect,  to  that  of  the  priest- 
hood. Here  youth,  beauty,  mind  and  manners, 
are  more  valued  than  a  pedigree. 

I  do  not  remember  the  conversation  between  us 
which  you  mention  in  yours  of  November  15th,  on 
your  proposition  to  vest  in  Congress  the  exclusive 
power  of  establishing  banks.  My  opposition  to  it 
must  have  been  grounded,  not  on  taking  the  power 
from  the  States,  but  on  leaving  any  vestige  of  it 
in  existence,  even  in  the  hands  of  Congress;  because 
it  would  only  have  been  a  change  of  the  organ  of 
abuse.  I  have  ever  been  the  enemy  of  banks,  not 
of  those  discounting  for  cash,  but  of  those  foisting 
their  own  paper  into  circulation,  and  thus  banish- 
ing our  cash.  My  zeal  against  those  institutions 
was  so  warm  and  open  at  the  establishment  of  the 


Correspondence  77 

Bank  of  the  United  States,  that  I  was  derided  as  a 
maniac  by  the  tribe  of  bank-mongers,  who  were 
seeking  to  filch  from  the  public  their  swindling 
and  barren  gains.  But  the  errors  of  that  day  cannot 
be  recalled.  The  evils  they  have  engendered  are 
now  upon  us,  and  the  question  is  how  we  are  to  get 
out  of  them?  Shall  we  build  an  altar  to  the  old 
paper  money  of  the  Revolution,  which  ruined  indi- 
viduals but  saved  the  republic,  and  burn  on  that 
all  the  bank  charters,  present  and  future,  and  their 
notes  with  them  ?  For  these  are  to  ruin  both  republic 
and  individuals.  This  cannot  be  done.  The  mania 
is  too  strong.  It  has  seized,  by  its  delusions  and 
corruptions,  all  the  members  of  our  governments, 
general,  special  and  individual.  Our  circulating 
paper  of  the  last  year  was  estimated  at  two  hundred 
millions  of  dollars.  The  new  banks  now  petitioned 
for,  to  the  several  legislatures,  are  for  about  sixty 
millions  additional  capital,  and  of  course  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty  millions  of  additional  circulation, 
nearly  doubling  that  of  the  last  year,  and  raising 
the  whole  mass  to  near  four  hundred  millions,  or 
forty  for  one,  of  the  wholesome  amount  of  circula- 
tion for  a  population  of  eight  millions  circumstanced 
as  we  are,  and  you  remember  how  rapidly  our  money 
went  down  after  our  forty  for  one  establishment  in 
the  Revolution.  I  doubt  if  the  present  trash  can 
hold  as  long.  I  think  the  three  hundred  and  eighty 
millions  must  blow  all  up  in  the  course  of  the  present 
year,  or  certainly  it  will  be  consummated  by  the 


78  Jefferson's  Works 

re-duplication  to  take  place  of  course  at  the  legis- 
lative meetings  of  the  next  winter.  Should  not 
prudent  men  who  possess  stock  in  any  moneyed 
institution,  either  draw  and  hoard  the  cash  now 
while  they  can,  or  exchange  it  for  canal  stock,  or 
such  other  as  being  bottomed  on  immovable  prop- 
erty, will  remain  unhurt  by  the  crush?  I  have  been 
endeavoring  to  persuade  a  friend  in  our  legislature 
to  try  and  save  this  State  from  the  general  ruin  by 
timely  interference.  I  propose  to  him,  First,  to 
prohibit  instantly,  all  foreign  paper.  Secondly, 
to  give  our  banks  six  months  to  call  in  all  their 
five-dollar  bills  (the  lowest  we  allow);  another  six 
months  to  call  in  their  ten-dollar  notes,  and  six 
months  more  to  call  in  all  below  fifty  dollars.  This 
would  produce  so  gradual  a  diminution  of  medium, 
as  not  to  shock  contracts  already  made — would 
leave  finally,  bills  of  such  size  as  would  be  called 
for  only  in  transactions  between  merchant  and 
merchant,  and  ensure  a  metallic  circulation  for 
those  of  the  mass  of  citizens.  But  it  will  not  be 
done.  You  might  as  well,  with  the  sailors,  whistle 
to  the  wind,  as  suggest  precautions  against  having  too 
much  money.  We  must  bend  then  before  the  gale, 
and  try  to  hold  fast  ourselves  by  some  plank  of  the 
wreck.  God  send  us  all  a  safe  deliverance,  and  to 
yourself  every  other  species  and  degree  of  happiness. 

P.  S..     I  return  your  letter  of  November  15th,  as 
it  requests,  and  supposing  that  the  late  publication 


Correspondence  79 

of  the  life  of  our  good  and  really  great  Rittenhouse 
may  not  have  reached  you,  I  send  a  copy  for  your 
acceptance.  Even  its  episodes  and  digressions  may 
add  to  the  amusement  it  will  furnish  you.  But 
if  the  history  of  the  world  were  written  on  the  same 
scale,  the  whole  world  would  not  hold  it.  Ritten- 
house, as  an  astronomer,  would  stand  on  a  line  with 
any  of  his  time,  and  as  a  mechanician,  he  certainly 
has  not  been  equalled.  In  this  view  he  was  truly 
great;  but,  placed  alongside  of  Newton,  every 
human  character  must  appear  diminutive,  and  none 
would  have  shrunk  more  feelingly  from  the  painful 
parallel  than  the  modest  and  amiable  Rittenhouse, 
whose  genius  and  merit  are  not  the  less  for  this 
exaggerated  comparison  of  his  over-zealous  biogra- 
pher. 


TO   JOHN    CLARKE. 

Monticello,  January  27,  1814. 
Sir, — Your  favor  of  December  2d  came  to  hand 
some  time  ago,  and  I  perceive  in  it  the  proofs  of  a 
mind  worthily  occupied  on  the  best  interests  of  our 
common  country.  To  carry  on  our  war  with  suc- 
cess, we  want  able  officers,  and  a  sufficient  number 
of  soldiers.  The  former,  time  and  trial  can  alone 
give  us;  to  procure  the  latter,  we  need  only  the 
tender  of  sufficient  inducements  and  the  assiduous 
pressure    of    them    on    the    proper    subjects.     The 


80  Jefferson's  Works 

inducement  of  interest  proposed  by  you,  is  undoubt- 
edly the  principal  one  on  which  any  reliance  can 
be  placed,  and  the  assiduous  pressure  of  it  on  the 
proper  subjects  would  probably  be  better  secured 
by  making  it  the  interest  and  the  duty  of  a  given 
portion  of  the  militia,  rather  than  that  of  a  mere 
recruiting  officer.  Whether,  however,  it  is  the 
best  mode,  belongs  to  the  decision  of  others;  but, 
satisfied  that  it  is  one  of  the  good  ones,  I  forwarded 
your  letter  to  a  member  of  the  government,  who 
will  make  it  a  subject  of  consideration  by  those 
with  whom  the  authority  rests.  Whether  the 
late  discomfiture  of  Bonaparte  will  have  the  effect 
of  shortening  or  lengthening  our  war,  is  uncertain. 
It  is  cruel  that  we  should  have  been  forced  to  wish 
any  success  to  such  a  destroyer  of  the  human  race. 
Yet  while  it  was  our  interest  and  that  of  humanity 
that  he  should  not  subdue  Russia,  and  thus  lay  all 
Europe  at  his  feet,  it  was  desirable  to  us  that  he 
should  so  far  succeed  as  to  close  the  Baltic  to  our 
enemy,  and  force  him,  by  the  pressure  of  internal 
distress,  into  a  disposition  to  return  to  the  paths 
of  justice  towards  us.  If  the  French  nation  stand 
by  Bonaparte,  he  may  rally,  rise  again,  and  yet 
give  Great  Britain  so  much  employment  as  to  give 
time  for  a  just  settlement  of  our  questions  with  her. 
We  must  patiently  wait  the  solution  of  this  doubt 
by  time.  Accept  the  assurances  of  my  esteem  and 
respect. 


Correspondence  81 

TO    SAMUEL    GREENHOW. 

Monticello,  January  31,   1814. 

Sir, — Your  letter  on  the  subject  of  the  Bible 
Society  arrived  here  while  I  was  on  a  journey  to 
Bedford,  which  occasioned  a  long  absence  from 
home.  Since  my  return,  it  has  lain,  with  a  mass 
of  others  accumulated  during  my  absence, '  till  I 
could  answer  them.  I  presume  the  views  of  the 
society  are  confined  to  our  own  country,  for  with 
the  religion  of  other  countries  my  own  forbids 
intermeddling.  I  had  not  supposed  there  was  a 
family  in  this  State  not  possessing  a  Bible,  and 
wishing  without  having  the  means  to  procure  one. 
When,  in  earlier  life,  I  was  intimate  with  every 
class,  I  think  I  never  was  in  a  house  where  that 
was  the  case.  However,  circumstances  may  have 
changed,  and  the  society,  I  presume,  have  evidence 
of  the  fact.  I  therefore  enclose  you  cheerfully,  an 
order  on  Messrs.  Gibson  &  Jefferson  for  fifty  dollars, 
for  the  purposes  of  the  society,  sincerely  agreeing 
with  you  that  there  never  was  a  more  pure  and 
sublime  system  of  morality  delivered  to  man  than 
is  to  be  found  in  the  four  evangelists.  Accept  the 
assurance  of  my  esteem  and  respect. 


VOL.  XIV — 6 


*2  Jefferson's  Works 


TO   JOSEPH    C.    CABELL. 

Monticello,  January  31,   1814. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  the  23d  is  •  received. 
Say  had  come  to  hand  safely.  But  I  regretted 
having  asked  the  return  of  him;  for  I  did  not  find 
in  him  one  new  idea  upon  the  subject  I  had  been 
contemplating;  nothing  more  than  a  succinct, 
judicious  digest  of  the  tedious  pages  of  Smith. 

You  ask  my  opinion  on  the  question,  whether 
the  States  can  add  any  qualifications  to  those  which 
the  Constitution  has  prescribed  for  their  members 
of  Congress?  It  is  a  question  I  had  never  before 
reflected  on;  yet  had  taken  up  an  off-hand  opinion, 
agreeing  with  your  first,  that  they  could  not;  that 
to  add  new  qualifications  to  those  of  the  Constitution, 
would  be  as  much  an  alteration  as  to  detract  from 
them.  And  so  I  think  the  House  of  Representatives 
of  Congress  decided  in  some  case;  I  believe  that 
of  a  member  from  Baltimore.  But  your  letter 
having  induced  me  to  look  into  the  Constitution, 
and  to  consider  the  question  a  little,  I  am  again 
in  your  predicament,  of  doubting  the  correctness 
of  my  first  opinion.  Had  the  Constitution  been 
silent,  nobody  can  doubt  but  that  the  right  to 
prescribe  all  the  qualifications  and  disqualifications 
of  those  they  would  send  to  represent  them,  would 
have  belonged  to  the  State.  So  also  the  Constitution 
might  have  prescribed  the  whole,  and  excluded 
all  others.     It  seems  to  have  preferred  the  middle 


Correspondence  $3 

way.  It  has  exercised  the  power  in  part,  by 
declaring  some  disqualifications,  to  wit,  those  of  not 
being  twenty-five  years  of  age,  of  not  having  been 
a  citizen  seven  years,  and  of  not  being  an  inhabi- 
tant of  the  State  at  the  time  of  election.  But  it 
does  not  declare,  itself,  that  the  member  shall  not  be  a 
lunatic,  a  pauper,  a  convict  of  treason,  of  murder,  of 
felony,  or  other  infamous  crime,  or  a  non-resident  of 
his  district ;  nor  does  it  prohibit  to  the  State  the  power 
of  declaring  these,  or  any  other  disqualifications 
which  its  particular  circumstances  may  call  for ;  and 
these  may  be  different  in  different  States.  Of  course, 
then,  by  the  tenth  amendment,  the  power  is  reserved 
to  the  State.  If,  wherever  the  Constitution  assumes 
a  single  power  out  of  many  which  belong  to  the 
same  subject,  we  should  consider  it  as  assuming 
the  whole,  it  would  vest  the  General  Government 
with  a  mass  of  powers  never  contemplated.  On 
the  contrary,  the  assumption  of  particular  powers 
seems  an  exclusion  of  all  not  assumed.  This  reason- 
ing appears  to  me  to  be  sound ;  but,  on  so  recent  a 
change  of  view,  caution  requires  us  not  to  be  too 
confident,  and  that  we  admit  this  to  be  one  of  the 
doubtful  questions  on  which  honest  men  may  differ 
with  the  purest  motives;  and  the  more  readily,  as 
we  find  we  have  differed  from  ourselves  on  it. 

I  have  always  thought  that  where  the  line  of 
demarcation  between  the  powers  of  the  General 
and  the  State  governments  was  doubtfully  or  indis- 
tinctly  drawn,   it  would  be   prudent   and   praise- 


s4  Jefferson's  Works 

worthy  in  both  parties,  never  to  approach  it  but 
under  the  most  urgent  necessity.  Is  the  necessity 
now  urgent,  to  declare  "that  no  non-resident  of  his 
district  shall  be  eligible  as  a  member  of  Congress? 
It  seems  to  me  that,  in  practice,  the  partialities 
of  the  people  are  a  sufficient  security  against  such 
an  election;  and  that  if,  in  any  instance,  they  should 
ever  choose  a  non-resident,  it  must  be  one  of  such 
eminent  merit  and  qualifications,  as  would  make 
it  a  good,  rather  than  an  evil;  and  that,  in  any  event, 
the  examples  will  be  so  rare,  as  never  to  amount 
to  a  serious  evil.  If  the  case  then  be  neither  clear 
nor  urgent,  would  it  not  be  better  to  let  it  lie  undis- 
turbed? Perhaps  its  decision  may  never  be  called 
for.  But  if  it  be  indispensable  to  establish  this 
disqualification  now,  would  it  not  look  better  to 
declare  such  others,  at  the  same  time,  as  may  be 
proper?  I  frankly  confide  to  yourself  these  opinions, 
or  rather  no-opinions,  of  mine ;  but  would  not  wish 
to  have  them  go  any  farther.  I  want  to  be  quiet; 
and  although  some  circumstances,  now  and  then, 
excite  me  to  notice  them,  I  feel  safe,  and  happier 
in  leaving  events  to  those  whose  turn  it  is  to  take 
care  of  them ;  and,  in  general,  to  let  it  be  understood 
that  I  meddle  little  or  not  at  all  with  public  affairs. 
There  are  two  subjects,  indeed,  which  I  shall  claim 
a  right  to  further  as  long  as  I  breathe,  the  public 
education,  and  the  sub-division  of  counties  into 
wards.  I  consider  the  continuance  of  republican 
government   as   absolutely  hanging  on   these   two 


Correspondence  85 

hooks.  Of  the  first,  you  will,  I  am  sure,  be  an 
advocate,  as  having  already  reflected  on  it,  and 
of  the  last,  when  you  shall  have  reflected.  Ever 
affectionately  yours. 


TO    DR.    THOMAS    COOPER. 

Monticello,  February  10,   1814. 

Dear  Sir, — In  my  letter  of  January  16,  I  promised 
you  a  sample  from  my  common-place  book,  of  the 
pious  disposition  of  the  English  judges,  to  connive 
at  the  frauds  of  the  clergy,  a  disposition  which  has 
even  rendered  them  faithful  allies  in  practice. 
When  I  was  a  student  of  the  law,  now  half  a  century 
ago,  after  getting  through  Coke  Littleton,  whose 
matter  cannot  be  abridged,  I  was  in  the  habit  of 
abridging  and  common-placing  what  I  read  merit- 
ing it,  and  of  sometimes  mixing  my  own  reflections 
on  the  subject.  I  now  enclose  you  the  extract  from 
these  entries  which  I  promised.  They  were  written 
at  a  time  of  life  when  I  was  bold  in  the  pursuit  of 
knowledge,  never  fearing  to  follow  truth  and  reason 
to  whatever  results  they  led,  and  bearding  every 
authority  which  stood  in  their  way.  This  must 
be  the  apology,  if  you  find  the  conclusions  bolder 
than  historical  facts  and  principles  will  warrant. 
Accept  with  them  the  assurances  of  my  great 
esteem  and  respect. 


36  Jefferson's  Works 

Common- place  Book. 

873.  In  Quare  imp.  in  C.  B.  34,  H.  6,  fo.  38,  the 
def.  Br.  of  Lincoln  pleads  that  the  church  of  the 
pi.  became  void  by  the  death  of  the  incumbent,  that 
the  pi.  and  J.  S.  each  pretending  a  right,  presented 
two   several   clerks;     that   the   church   being   thus 
rendered    litigious,    he    was    not    obliged,    by    the 
Ecclesiastical  law  to  admit  either,  until  an  inquisition 
de  jure  patronatus,  in  the  ecclesiastical  court:  that, 
by  the  same  law,  this  inquisition  was  to  be  at  the 
suit  of  either  claimant,  and  was  not  ex-officio  to  be 
instituted  by  the  bishop,  and  at  his  proper  costs; 
that  neither  party  had  desired  such  an  inquisition; 
that  six  months  passed  whereon  it  belonged  to  him 
of  right  to  present  as  on  a  lapse,  which  he  had  done. 
The  pi.  demurred.     A  question  was,  How  far  the 
Ecclesiastical  law  was  to  be  respected  in  this  matter 
by  the  common  law  court?   and  Prisot  C.  3,  in  the 
course  of  his  argument  uses  this  expression,  "A  tiels 
leis  que  ils  de  seint  eglise  ont  en  ancien  scripture, 
covient  a  nous  a  donner  credence ;  car  ces  common 
ley  sur  quel  touts  manners  leis  sont  fondes :  et  auxy , 
Sir,  nous  sumus  obliges  de  conustre  nostre  ley;   et, 
Sir,  si  poit  apperer  or  a  nous  que  lievesque  ad  fait 
comme  un  ordinary  fera  en  tiel  cas,   adong  nous 
devons  ces  adjuger  bon  autrement  nemy,"  etc.     It 
does  not  appear  that  judgment  was  given.     Y.  B. 
ubi  supra.  S.  C.  Fitzh.  abr.  Qu.  imp.  89.     Bro.  abr. 
Qu.  imp.  12.     Finch  mistakes  this  in  the  following 
manner:     "To   such  laws   of  the   church   as  have 


Correspondence  87 

warrant  in  Holy  Scripture,  our  law  giveth  credence," 
and  cites  the  above  case,  and  the  words  of  Prisot  on 
the  margin.     Finch's  law,  B.  1,  ch.  3,  published  161 3. 
Here  we  find   "  ancien  scripture"  [ancient  writing] 
converted  into   "Holy   Scripture,"  whereas  it  can 
only  mean  the  ancient  written  laws  of  the  church. 
It    cannot    mean    the    Scriptures,    1,    because    the 
"ancien   scripture"   must   then   be   understood   to 
mean  the  "Old  Testament"  or  Bible,  in  opposition 
to  the  "New  Testament,"  and  to  the  exclusion  of 
that,  which  would  be  absurd  and  contrary  to  the 
wish  of  those  who  cite  this  passage  to  prove  that 
the   Scriptures,    or   Christianity,   is   a   part   of   the 
common  law.     2.  Because  Prisot  says,   "Ceo  [est] 
common    ley,    sur    quel    touts    manners    leis    sont 
fondes."     Now,  it  is  true  that  the  Ecclesiastical  law, 
so  far  as  admitted  in  England,  derives  its  authority 
from  the  common  law.     But  it  would  not  be  true 
that  the  Scriptures  so  derive  their  authority.     3.  The 
whole  case  and  arguments  show  that  the  question 
was  how  far  the  Ecclesiastical  law  in  general  should 
be  respected  in  a  common  law  court.     And  in  Bro. 
abr.   of  this  case,   Littleton  says,    "Les  juges  del 
common  ley  prendra  conusans  quid  est  lax  ecclesice, 
vel  admiralitatis,  et  trujus  modi."-    4.  Because  the 
particular  part  of  the   Ecclesiastical  law  then  in 
question,  to  wit,  the  right  of  the  patron  to  present 
to  his  advowson,  was  not  founded  on  the  law  of  God, 
but  subject  to  the  modification  of  the  lawgiver,  and 
so  could  not  introduce   any  such  general   position 


88  Jefferson's  Works 

as  Finch  pretends.  Yet  Wingate  [in  1658]  thinks 
proper  to  erect  this  false  quotation  into  a  maxim 
of  the  common  law,  expressing  it  in  the  very  words 
of  Finch,  but  citing  Prisot;  Wing.  max.  3.  Next 
comes  Sheppard  [in  1675],  wno  states  it  in  the  same 
words  of  Finch,  and  quotes  the  ■  Year-Book,  Finch 
and  Wingate.  3  Shepp.  abr.,  tit.  Religion.  In  the 
case  of  the  King  v.  Taylor,  Sir  Matthew  Hale  lays  it 
down  in  these  words,  "Christianity  is  parcel  of  the 
laws  of  England."  1  Ventr.  293,  3  Keb.  607.  But 
he  quotes  no  authority,  resting  it  on  his  own,  which 
was  good  in  all  cases  in  which  his  mind  received  no 
bias  from  his  bigotry,  his  superstitions,  his  visions 
about  sorceries,  demons,  etc.  The  power  of  these 
over  him  is  exemplified  in  his  hanging  of  the  witches. 
So  strong  was  this  doctrine  become  in  1728,  by 
additions  and  repetitions  from  one  another,  that  in 
the  case  of  the  King  v.  Woolston,  the  court  would 
not  suffer  it  to  be  debated,  whether  to  write  against 
Christianity  was  punishable  in  the  temporal  courts 
at  common  law,  saying  it  had  been  so  settled  in 
Taylor's  case,  ante,  2  Stra.  834;  therefore,  Wood,  in 
his  Institute,  lays  it  down  that  all  blasphemy  and 
profaneness  are  offences  by  the  common  law,  and 
cites  Strange  ubi  supra.  Wood  409.  And  Blackstone 
[about  1763]  repeats,  in  the  words  of  Sir  Matthew 
Hale,  that  "  Christianity  is  part  of  the  laws  of 
England,"  citing  Ventris  and  Strange  ubi  supra, 
4  Blackst.  59.  Lord  Mansfield  qualifies  it  a  little 
by  saying  that  "the  essential  principles  of  revealed 


Correspondence  89 

religion  are  part  of  the  common  law."  In  the  case 
of  the  Chamberlain  of  London  v.  Evans,  1767.  But 
he  cites  no  authority,  and  leaves  us  at  our  peril  to 
find  out  what,  in  the  opinion  of  the  judge,  and 
according  to  the  measure  of  his  foot  or  his  faith, 
are  those  essential  principles  of  revealed  religion 
obligatory  on  us  as  a  part  of  the  common  law. 

Thus  we  find  this  string  of  authorities,  when 
examined  to  the  beginning,  all  hanging  on  the  same 
hook,  a  perverted  expression  of  Prisot's,  or  on  one 
another,  or  nobody.  Thus  Finch  quotes  Prisot; 
Wingate  also;  Sheppard  quotes  Prisot,  Finch  and 
Wingate;  Hale  cites  nobody;  the  court  in  Wool- 
ston's  case  cite  Hale;  Wood  cites  Woolston's  case; 
Blackstone  that  and  Hale ;  and  Lord  Mansfield,  like 
Hale,  ventures  it  on  his  own  authority.  In  the 
earlier  ages  of  the  law,  as  in  the  year-books,  for 
instance,  we  do  not  expect  much  recurrence  to 
authorities  by  the  judges,  because  in  those  days 
there  were  few  or  none  such  made  public.  But  in 
latter  times  we  take  no  judge's  word  for  what  the 
law  is,  further  than  he  is  warranted  by  the  authorities 
he  appeals  to.  His  decision  may  bind  the  unfor- 
tunate individual  who  happens  to  be  the  particular 
subject  of  it;  but  it  cannot  alter  the  law.  Though 
the  common  law  may  be  termed  "  Lex  non  Scripta," 
yet  the  same  Hale  tells  us  "when  I  call  those  parts 
of  our  laws  Leges  non  Scriptas,  I  do  not  mean  as  if 
those  laws  were  only  oral,  or  communicated  from 
the  former  ages  to  the  latter  merely  by  word.    For 


9°  Jefferson's  Works 

all  those  laws  have  their  several  monuments  in 
writing,  whereby  they  are  transferred  from  one  age 
to  another,  and  without  which  they  would  soon  lose 
all  kind  of  certainty.  They  are  for  the  most  part 
extant  in  records  of  pleas,  proceedings,  and  judg- 
ments, in  books  of  reports  and  judicial  decisions,  in 
tractates  of  learned  men's  arguments  and  opinions, 
preserved  from  ancient  times  and  still  extant  in 
writing."  Hale's  H.  c.  d.  22.  Authorities  for  what 
is  common  law  may  therefore  be  as  well  cited,  as 
for  any  part  of  the  Lex  Scripta,  and  there  is  no 
better  instance  of  the  necessity  of  holding  the  judges 
and  writers  to  a  declaration  of  their  authorities  than 
the  present;  where  we  detect  them  endeavoring  to 
make  law  where  they  found  none,  and  to  submit  us 
at  one  stroke  to  a  whole  system,  no  particle  of  which 
has  its  foundation  in  the  common  law.  For  we 
know  that  the  common  law  is  that  system  of  law 
which  was  introduced  by  the  Saxons  on  their  settle- 
ment in  England,  and  altered  from  time  to  time  by 
proper  legislative  authority  from  that  time  to  the 
date  of  Magna  Charta,  which  terminates  the  period 
of  the  common  law,  or  Lex  non  Scripta,  and  com- 
mences that  of  the  statute  law,  or  Lex  Scripta.  This 
settlement  took  place  about  the  middle  of  the  fifth 
century.  But  Christianity  was  not  introduced  till 
the  seventh  century;  the  conversion  of  the  first 
Christian  king  of  the  Heptarchy  having  taken  place 
about  the  year  598,  and  that  of  the  last  about  686. 
Here,    then,   was   a   space   of  two  hundred   years, 


Correspondence  91 

during  which  the  common  law  was  in  existence,  and 
Christianity  no  part  of  it.  If  it  ever  was  adopted, 
therefore,  into  the  common  law,  it  must  have  been 
between  the  introduction  of  Christianity  and  the 
date  of  the  Magna  Charta.  But  of  the  laws  of  this 
period  we  have  a  tolerable  collection  by  Lambard 
and  Wilkins,  probably  not  perfect,  but  neither  very 
defective ;  and  if  any  one  chooses  to  build  a  doctrine 
on  any  law  of  that  period,  supposed  to  have  been 
lost,  it  is  incumbent  on  him  to  prove  it  to  have 
existed,  and  what  were  its  contents.  These  were  so 
far  alterations  of  the  common  law,  and  became 
themselves  a  part  of  it.  But  none  of  these  adopt 
Christianity  as  a  part  of  the  common  law.  If,  there- 
fore, from  the  settlement  of  the  Saxons  to  the  intro- 
duction of  Christianity  among  them,  that  system  of 
religion  could  not  be  a  part  of  the  common  law, 
because  they  were  not  yet  Christians,  and  if,  having 
their  laws  from  that  period  to  the  close  of  the 
common  law,  we  are  all  able  to  find  among  them  no 
such  act  of  adoption,  we  may  safely  affirm  (though 
contradicted  by  all  the  judges  and  writers  on  earth) 
that  Christianity  neither  is,  nor  ever  was  a  part  of 
the  common  law.  Another  cogent  proof  of  this 
truth  is  drawn  from  the  silence  of  certain  writers  on 
the  common  law.  Bracton  gives  us  a  very  complete 
and  scientific  treatise  of  the  whole  body  of  the 
common  law.  He  wrote  this  about  the  close  of  the 
reign  of  Henry  III.,  a  very  few  years  after  the  date 
of  the  Magna  Charta.     We  consider  this  book  as  the 


92  Jefferson's  Works 

more  valuable,  as  it  was  written  about  the  time 
which  divides  the  common  and  statute  law,  and 
therefore  gives  us  the  former  in  its  ultimate  state. 
Bracton,  too,  was  an  ecclesiastic,  and  would  certainly 
not  have  failed  to  inform  us  of  the  adoption  of  Chris- 
tianity as  a  part  of  the  common  law,  had  any  such 
adoption  ever  taken  place.  But  no  word  of  his, 
which  intimates  anything  like  it,  has  ever  been  cited. 
Fleta  and  Britton,  who  wrote  in  the  succeeding  reign 
(of  Edward  I.),  are  equally  silent.  So  also  is  Glanvil, 
an  earlier  writer  than  any  of  them,  (viz. :  temp.  H.  2,) 
but  his  subject  perhaps  might  not  have  led  him  to 
mention  it.  Justice  Fortescue  Aland,  who  possessed 
more  Saxon  learning  than  all  the  judges  and  writers 
before  mentioned  put  together,  places  this  subject 
on  more  limited  ground.  Speaking  of  the  laws  of 
the  Saxon  kings,  he  says,  "  the  ten  commandments 
were  made  part  of  their  laws,  and  consequently  were 
once  part  of  the  law  of  England;  so  that  to  break 
any  of  the  ten  commandments  was  then  esteemed  a 
breach  of  the  common  law,  of  England;  and  why  it 
is  not  so  now,  perhaps  it  may  be  difficult  to  give  a 
good  reason. "  Preface  to  Fortescue  Aland's  reports, 
xvii.  Had  he  proposed  to  state  with  more  minute- 
ness how  much  of  the  Scriptures  had  been  made  a 
part  of  the  common  law,  he  might  have  added  that 
in  the  laws  of  Alfred,  where  he  found  the  ten  com- 
mandments, two  or  three  other  chapters  of  Exodus 
are  copied  almost  verbatim.  But  the  adoption  of  a 
part  proves  rather  a  rejection  of  the  rest,  as  municipal 


Correspondence  93 

law.  We  might  as  well  say  that  the  Newtonian 
system  of  philosophy  is  a  part  of  the  common  law, 
as  that  the  Christian  religion  is.  The  truth  is  that 
Christianity  and  Newtonianism  being  reason  and 
verity  itself,  in  the  opinion  of  all  but  infidels  and, 
Cartesians,  they  are  protected  under  the  wings  of 
the  common  law  from  the  dominion  of  other  sects, 
but  not  erected  into  dominion  over  them.  An 
eminent  Spanish  physician  affirmed  that  the  lancet 
had  slain  more  men  than  the  sword.  Doctor  San- 
grado,  on  the  contrary,  affirmed  that  with  plentiful 
bleedings,  and  draughts  of  warm  water,  every  disease 
was  to  be  cured.  The  common  law  protects  both 
opinions,  but  enacts  neither  into  law.  See  post,  879. 
879.  Howard,  in  his  Contumes  Anglo- Normandes, 
1.  87,  notices  the  falsification  of  the  laws  of  Alfred, 
by  prefixing  to  them  four  chapters  of  the  Jewish  law, 
to  wit:  the  20th,  21st,  22d  and  23d  chapters  of 
Exodus,  to  which  he  might  have  added  the  15th 
chapter  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  v.  23,  and 
precepts  from  other  parts  of  the  Scripture.  These 
he  calls  a  hors  d'ceuvre  of  some  pious  copyist.  This 
awkward  monkish  fabrication  makes  the  preface  to 
Alfred's  genuine  laws  stand  in  the  body  of  the  work, 
and  the  very  words  of  Alfred  himself  prove  the 
fraud;  for  he  declares,  in  that  preface,  that  he  has 
collected  these  laws  from  those  of  Ina,  of  Offa, 
Aethelbert  and  his  ancestors,  saying  nothing  of  any 
of  them  being  taken  from  the  Scriptures.  It  is  still 
more  certainly  proved  by  the  inconsistencies  it  occa- 


f 4  Jefferson's  Works 

sions.     For  example,  the  Jewish  legislator,  Exodus 
xxi.  12,  13,  14,  (copied  by  the  Pseudo  Alfred  §  13,) 
makes  murder,  with  the  Jews,  death.     But  Alfred 
himself,  Le.  xxvi.,  punishes  it  by  a  fine  only,  called 
a  Weregild,   proportioned  to  the  condition  of  the 
person  killed.     It  is  remarkable  that  Hume  (append. 
1  to  his  History)  examining  this  article  of  the  laws 
of   Alfred,    without   perceiving   the   fraud,    puzzles 
himself  with  accounting  for  the  inconsistency  it  had 
introduced.     To  strike  a  pregnant  woman  so  that 
she  die,  is  death  by  Exodus  xxi.  22,  23,  and  Pseud. 
Alfr.  §   18;    but  by  the  laws  of  Alfred  ix.,  pays  a 
Weregild  for  both  woman  and  child.     To  smite  out 
an  eye,  or  a  tooth,  Exod.  xxi.  24-27,  Pseud.  Alfr. 
§   19,  20,  if  of  a  servant  by  his  master,  is  freedom 
to  the  servant ;  in  every  other  case  retaliation.     But 
by   Alfr.    Le.   xl.    a   fixed   indemnification   is   paid. 
Theft  of  an  ox,  or  a  sheep,  by  the  Jewish  law,  Exod. 
xxii.  1,  was  repaid  five-fold  for  the  ox  and  four-fold 
for  the  sheep;    by  the  Pseudograph  §    24,  the  ox 
double,  the  sheep  four-fold;  but  by  Alfred  Le.  xvi., 
he  who  stole  a  cow  and  a  calf  was  to  repay  the  worth 
of  the  cow  and  forty  shillings  for  the  calf.     Goring 
by  an  ox  was  the  death  of  the  ox,  and  the  flesh  not  to 
be  eaten.     Exod.   xxi:   28,     Pseud.  Alfr.  §    21;   by 
Alfred  Le.  xxi  v.,  the  wounded  person  had  the  ox. 
The  Pseudograph  makes  municipal  laws  of  the  ten 
commandments,  §  1-10,  regulates  concubinage,  §  12, 
makes  it  death  to  strike  or  to  curse  father  or  mother, 
§  14,  15,  gives  an  eye  for  an  eye,  tooth  for  a  tooth, 


Correspondence  95 

hand  for  hand,  foot  for  foot,  burning  for  burning, 
wound  for  wound,  strife  for  strife,  §  19;  sells  the 
thief  to  repay  his  theft,  §  24;  obliges  the  fornicator 
to  marry  the  woman  he  has  lain  with,  §  29 ;  forbids 
interest  on  money,  §  35 ;  makes  the  laws  of  bailment, 
§  28,  very  different  from  what  Lord  Holt  delivers 
in  Coggs  v.  Bernard,  ante,  92,  and  what  Sir  William 
Jones  tells  us  they  were;  and  punishes  witchcraft 
with  death,  §  30,  which  Sir  Matthew  Hale,  1  H.  P. 
C.  B.  1,  ch.  33,  declares  was  not  a  felony  before  the 
Stat.  1  Jac.  12.  It  was  under  that  statute,  and  not 
this  forgery,  that  he  hung  Rose  Cullendar  and  Amy 
Duny,  16  Car.  2  (1662),  on  whose  trial  he  declared 
"  that  there  were  such  creatures  as  witches  he  made 
no  doubt  at  all;  for  first  the  Scripture  had  affirmed 
so  much,  secondly  the  wisdom  of  all  nations  had 
provided  laws  against  such  persons,  and  such  hath 
been  the  judgment  of  this  kingdom,  as  appears  by 
that  act  of  Parliament  which  hath  provided  punish- 
ment proportionable  to  the  quality  of  the  offence." 
And  we  must  certainly  allow  greater  weight  to  this 
position  that  "it  was  no  felony  till  James'  Statute," 
laid  down  deliberately  in  his  H.  P.  C,  a  work  which 
he  wrote  to  be  printed,  finished,  and  transcribed  for 
the  press  in  his  lifetime,  than  to  the  hasty  scripture 
that  "  at  common  law  witchcraft  was  punished  with 
death  as  heresy,  by  writ  de  Heretico  Comburendo" 
in  his  Methodical  Summary  of  the  P.  C.  p.  6,  a  work 
"not  intended  for  the  press,  not  fitted  for  it,  and 
which  he  declared  himself  he  had  never  read  over 


96  Jeff  erson'sT  Works 

since  it  was  written;"  Pref.  Unless  we  understand 
his  meaning  in  that  to  be  that  witchcraft  could  not 
be  punished  at  common  law  as  witchcraft,  but  as 
heresy.  In  either  sense,  however,  it  is  a  denial  of 
this  pretended  law  of  Alfred.  Now,  all  men  of 
reading  know  that  these  pretended  laws  of  homicide, 
concubinage,  theft,  retaliation,  compulsory  mar- 
riage, usury,  bailment,  and  others  which  might  have 
been  cited,  from  the  Pseudograph,  were  never  the 
laws  of  England,  not  even  in  Alfred's  time;  and  of 
course  that  it  is  a  forgery.  Yet  palpable  as  it  must 
be  to  every  lawyer,  the  English  judges  have  piously 
avoided  lifting  the  veil  under  which  it  was  shrouded. 
In  truth,  the  alliance  between  Church  and  State  in 
England  has  ever  made  their  judges  accomplices  in 
the  frauds  of  the  clergy ;  and  even  bolder  than  they 
are.  For  instead  of  being  contented  with  these  four 
surreptitious  chapters  of  Exodus,  they  have  taken 
the  whole  leap,  and  declared  at  once  that  the  whole 
Bible  and  Testament  in  a  lump,  make  a  part  of  the 
common  law;  ante,  873 :  the  first  judicial  declaration 
of  which  was  by  this  same  Sir  Matthew  Hale.  And 
thus  they  incorporate  into  the  English  code,  laws 
made  for  the  Jews  alone,  and  the  precepts  of  the 
Gospel,  intended  by  their  benevolent  Author  as 
obligatory  only  in  foro  cons  dentin;  and  they  arm 
the  whole  with  the  coercions  of  municipal  law.  In 
doing  this,  too,  they  have  not  even  used  the  Con- 
necticut caution  of  declaring,  as  is  done  in  their 
blue  laws,  that  the  laws  of  God  shall  be  the  laws  of 


Correspondence  97 

their  land,  except  where  their  own  contradict  them; 
but  they  swallow  the  yea  and  nay  together.  Finally, 
in  answer  to  Fortescue  Aland's  question  why  the 
ten  commandments  should  not  how  be  a  part  of  the 
common  law  of  England?  we  may  say  they  are  not 
because  they  never  were  made  so  by  legislative 
authority,  the  document  which  has  imposed  that 
doubt  on  him  being  a  manifest  forgery. 


TO    DR.    JOHN    MANNERS. 

Monticello,  February  22,  1814. 

S  R, — The  opinion  which,  in  your  letter  of  January 
24,  you  are  pleased  to  ask  of  me,  on  the  comparative 
merits  of  the  different  methods  of  classification 
adopted  by  different  writers  on  Natural  History,  is 
one  which  I  could  not  have  given  satisfactorily,  even 
at  the  earlier  period  at  which  the  subject  was  more 
familiar;  still  less,  after  a  life  of  continued  occupa- 
tion in  civil  concerns  has  so  much  withdrawn  me 
from  studies  of  that  kind.  I  can,  therefore,  answer 
but  in  a  very  general  way.  And  the  text  of  this 
answer  will  be  found  in  an  observation  in  your  letter, 
where,  speaking  of  nosological  systems,  you  say  that 
disease  has  been  found  to  be  an  unit.  Nature  has, 
in  truth,  produced  units,  only  through  all  her  works. 
Classes,  orders,  genera,  species,  are  not  of  her  work. 
Her  creation  is  of  individuals.  No  two  animals  are 
exactly  alike;    no  two  plants,  nor  even  two  leaves 

VOL.  XIV — 7 


9%  Jefferson's  Works 

or  blades  of  grass;  no  two  crystallizations.  And  if 
we  may  venture  from  what  is  within  the  cognizance 
of  such  organs  as  ours,  to  conclude  on  that  beyond 
their  powers,  we  must  believe  that  no  two  particles 
of  matter  are  of  exact  resemblance.  This  infinitude 
of  units  or  individuals  being  far  beyond  the  capacity 
of  our  memory,  we  are  obliged,  in  aid  of  that,  to 
distribute  them  into  masses,  throwing  into  each  of 
these  all  the  individuals  which  have  a  certain  degree 
of  resemblance;  to  subdivide  these  again  into 
smaller  groups,  according  to  certain  points  of  dis- 
similitude observable  in  them,  and  so  on  until  we 
have  formed  what  we  call  a  system  of  classes,  orders, 
genera  and  species.  In  doing  this,  we  fix  arbitrarily 
on  such  characteristic  resemblances  and  differences 
as  seem  to  us  most  prominent  and  invariable  in  the 
several  subjects,  and  most  likely  to  take  a  strong 
hold  in  our  memories.  Thus  Ray  formed  one  classi- 
fication on  such  lines  of  division  as  struck  him  most 
favorably;  Klein  adopted  another;  Brisson  a  third, 
and  other  naturalists  other  designations,  till  Linnaeus 
appeared.  Fortunately  for  science,  he  conceived  in 
the  three  kingdoms  of  nature,  modes  of  classification 
which  obtained  the  approbation  of  the  learned  of 
all  nations.  His  system,  was  accordingly  adopted 
by  all,  and  united  all  in  a  general  language.  It 
offered  the  three  great  desiderata:  First,  of  aiding 
the  memory  to  retain  a  knowledge  of  the  productions 
of  nature.  Secondly,  of  rallying  all  to  the  same 
names  for  the  same  objects,  so  that  they  could  com- 


Correspondence  99 

municate  understandingly  on  them.  And  thirdly, 
of  enabling  them,  when  a  subject  was  first  presented, 
to  trace  it  by  its  character  up  to  the  conventional 
name  by  which  it  was  agreed  to  be  called.  This 
classification  was  indeed  liable  to  the  imperfection 
of  bringing  into  the  same  group  individuals  which, 
though  resembling  in  the  characteristics  adopted  by 
the  author  for  his  classification,  yet  have  strong 
marks  of  dissimilitude  in  other  respects.  But  to 
this  objection  every  mode  of  classification  must  be 
liable,  because  the  plan  of  creation  is  inscrutable  to 
our  limited  faculties.  Nature  has  not  arranged  her 
productions  on  a  single  and  direct  line.  They  branch 
at  every  step,  and  in  every  direction,  and  he  who 
attempts  to  reduce  them  into  departments,  is  left 
to  do  it  by  the  lines  of  his  own  fancy.  The  objection 
of  bringing  together  what  are  disparata  in  nature, 
lies  against  the  classifications  of  Blumenbach  and  of 
Cuvier,  as  well  as  that  of  Linnaeus,  and  must  forever 
lie  against  all.  Perhaps  not  in  equal  degree ;  on  this 
I  do  not  pronounce.  But  neither  is  this  so  important 
a  consideration  as  that  of  uniting  all  nations  under 
orie  language  in  Natural  History.  This  had  been 
happily  effected  by  Linnaeus,  and  can  scarcely  be 
hoped  for  a  second  time.  Nothing  indeed  is  so 
desperate  as  to  make  all  mankind  agree  in  giving 
up  a  language  they  possess,  for  one  which  they  have 
to  learn.  The  attempt  leads  directly  to  the  con- 
fusion of  the  tongues  of  Babel.  Disciples  of  Linnaeus, 
of  Blumenbach,  and  of  Cuvier,  exclusively  possessing 


ioo  Jefferson's  Works 

their  own  nomenclatures,  can  no  longer  communicate 
intelligibly  with  one  another.  However  much,  there- 
fore, we  are  indebted  to  both  these  naturalists,  and 
to  Cuvier  especially,  for  the  valuable  additions  they 
have  made  to  the  sciences  of  nature,  I  cannot  say 
they  have  rendered  her  a  service  in  this  attempt  to 
innovate  in  the  settled  nomenclature  of  her  pro- 
ductions; on  the  contrary,  I  think  it  will  be  a  check 
on  the  progress  of  science,  greater  or  less,  in  pro- 
portion as  their  schemes  shall  more  or  less  prevail. 
They  would  have  rendered  greater  service  by  holding 
fast  to  the  system  on  which  we  had  once  all  agreed, 
and  by  inserting  into  that  such  new  genera,  orders, 
or  even  classes,  as  new  discoveries  should  call  for. 
Their  systems,  too,  and  especially  that  of  Blumen- 
bach,  are  liable  to  the  objection  of  giving  too  much 
into  the  province  of  anatomy.  It  may  be  said, 
indeed,  that  anatomy  is  a  part  of  natural  history. 
In  the  broad  sense  of  the  word,  it  certainly  is.  In 
that  sense,  however,  it  would  comprehend  all  the 
natural  sciences,  every  created  thing  being  a  subject 
of  natural  history  in  extenso.  But  in  the  subdi- 
visions of  general  science,  as  has  been  observed  in 
the  particular  one  of  natural  history,  it  has  been 
necessary  to  draw  arbitrary  lines,  in  order  to  accom- 
modate our  limited  views.  According  to  these,  as 
soon  as  the  structure  of  any  natural  production  is 
destroyed  by  art,  it  ceases  to  be  a  subject  of  natural 
history,  and  enters  into  the  domain  ascribed  to 
chemistry,  to  pharmacy,  to  anatomy,  etc.     Linnaeus' 


Correspondence  *  o  i 

method  was  liable  to  this  objection  so  far  as  it  re- 
quired the  aid  of  anatomical  dissection,  as ,  of  the 
heart,  for  instance,  to  ascertain  the  place  of  any 
animal,  or  of  a  chemical  process  for  that  of  a  mineral 
substance.  It  would  certainly  be  better  to  adopt 
as  much  as  possible  such  exterior  and  visible  char- 
acteristics as  every  traveller  is  competent  to  observe, 
to  ascertain  and  to  relate.  But  with  this  objection, 
lying  but  in  a  small  degree,  Linnaeus'  method  was 
received,  understood,  and  conventionally  settled 
among  the  learned,  and  was  even  getting  into  com- 
mon use.  To  disturb  it  then  was  unfortunate.  The 
new  system  attempted  in  botany,  by  Jussieu,  in 
mineralogy,  by  Hauiy,  are  subjects  of  the  same 
regret,  and  so  also  the  no-system  of  Buff  on,  the  great 
advocate  of  individualism  in  opposition  to  classifica- 
tion. He  would  carry  us  back  to  the  days  and  to 
the  confusion  of  Aristotle  and  Pliny,  give  up  the 
improvements  of  twenty  centuries,  and  co-operate 
with  the  neologists  in  rendering  the  science  of  one 
generation  useless  to  the  next  by  perpetual  changes 
of  its  language.  In  botany,  Wildenow  and  Persoon 
have  incorporated  into  Linnaeus  the  new  discovered 
plants.  I  do  not  know  whether  any  one  has  rendered 
us  the  same  service  as  to  his  natural  history.  It 
would  be  a  very  acceptable  one.  The  materials  fur- 
nished by  Humboldt,  and  those  from  New  Holland 
particularly,  require  to  be  digested  into  the  catholic 
system.  Among  these  the  Ornithorhyncus  men- 
tioned by  you,  is  an  amusing  example  of  the  anom- 


1 02  Jeff  ersorTs  Works 

alies  by  which  nature  sports  with  our  schemes  of 
classification.  Although  without  mammae,  natural- 
ists are  obliged  to  place  it  in  the  class  of  mammif  erae ; 
and  Blumenbach,  particularly,  arranges  it  in  his 
order  of  Palmipeds  and  toothless  genus,  with  the 
walrus  and  manatie.  In  Linnaeus'  system,  it  might 
be  inserted  as  a  new  genus  between  the  anteater  and 
manis,  in  the  order  of  Bruta.  It  seems,  in  truth,  to 
have  stronger  relations  with  that  class  than  any 
other  in  the  construction  of  the  heart,  its  red  and 
warm  blood,  hairy  integuments,  in  being  quadruped 
and  viviparous,  and  may  we  not  say,  in  its  tout 
ensemble,  which  Buflon  makes  his  sole  principle  of 
arrangement?  The  mandible,  as  you  observe,  would 
draw  it  towards  the  birds,  were  not  this  character- 
istic overbalanced  by  the  weightier  ones  before  men- 
tioned. That  of  the  Cloaca  is  equivocal,  because 
although  a  character  of  birds,  yet  some  mammalia, 
as  the  beaver  and  sloth,  have  the  rectum  and  urinary 
passage  terminating  at  a  common  opening.  Its  ribs 
also,  by  their  number  and  structure,  are  nearer  those 
of  the  bird  than  of  the  mammalia.  It  is  possible  that 
further  opportunities  of  examination  may  discover 
the  mammae.  Those  of  the  Opossum  are  asserted, 
by  the  Chevalier  d'Aboville,  from  his  own  observa- 
tions on  that  animal,  made  while  here  with  the 
French  army,  to  be  not  discoverable  until  pregnancy, 
and  to  disappear  as  soon  as  the  young  are  weaned. 
The  Duckbill  has  many  additional  particularities 
which  liken  it  to  other  genera,  and  some  entirely 


Correspondence  *  °3 

peculiar.  Its  description  and  history  need  yet 
further  information. 

In  what  I  have  said  on  the  method  of  classing,  I 
have  not  at  all  meant  to  insinuate  that  that  of  Lin- 
naeus is  intrinsically  preferable  to  those  of  Blumen- 
bach  and  Cuvier.  I  adhere  to  the  Linnean  because 
it  is  sufficient  as  a  groundwork,  admits  of  supple- 
mentary insertions  as  new  productions  are  discov- 
ered, and  mainly  because  it  has  got  into  so  general 
use  that  it  will  not  be  easy  to  displace  it,  and  still  less 
to  find  another  which  shall  have  the  same  singular 
fortune  of  obtaining  the  general  consent.  During 
the  attempt  we  shall  become  unintelligible  to  one 
another,  and  science  will  be  really  retarded  by  efforts 
to  advance  it  made  by  its  most  favorite  sons.  I  am 
not  myself  apt  to  be  alarmed  at  innovations  recom- 
mended by  reason.  That  dread  belongs  to  those 
whose  interests  or  prejudices  shrink  from  the  ad- 
vance of  truth  and  science.  My  reluctance  is  to  give 
up  an  universal  language  of  which  we  are  in  posses- 
sion, without  an  assurance  of  general  consent  to 
receive  another.  And  the  higher  the  character  of 
the  authors  recommending  it,  and  the  more  excellent 
what  they  offer,  the  greater  the  danger  of  producing 
schism. 

I  should  seem  to  need  apology  for  these  long  re- 
marks to  you  who  are  so  much  more  recent  in  these 
studies,  but  I  find  it  in  your  particular  request  and 
my  own  respect  for  it,  and  with  that  be  pleased  to 
accept  the  assurance  of  my  esteem  and  consideration. 


io4  Jefferson's  Works 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  February,   1814. 

Dear  Sir, — I  was  nibbing  my  pen  and  brushing 
my  faculties,  to  write  a  polite  letter  of  thanks  to  Mr. 
Counsellor  Barton,  for  his  valuable  memoirs  of  Dr. 
Rittenhouse,  (though  I  could  not  account  for  his 
sending  it  to  me,)  when  I  received  your  favor  of  Jan- 
uary 25th.  I  now  most  cordially  endorse  my  thanks 
over  to  you.  The  book  is  in  the  modern  American 
style,  an  able  imitation  of  Marshall's  Washington, 
though  far  more  entertaining  and  instructive;  a 
Washington  Mausoleum;  an  Egyptian  pyramid.  I 
shall  never  read  it  any  more  than  Taylor's  Aristocracy. 
Mrs.  Adams  reads  it  with  great  delight,  and  reads  to 
me  what  she  finds  interesting,  and  that  is  indeed  the 
whole  book.     I  have  not  time  to  hear  it  all. 

Rittenhouse  was  a  virtuous  and  amiable  man,  an 
exquisite  mechanician,  master  of  the  astronomy 
known  in  his  time;  an  expert  mathematician,  a 
patient  calculator  of  numbers.  But  we  have  had 
a  Winthrop,  an  Andrew  Oliver,  a  Willard,  a  Webber, 
his  equals,  and  we  have  a  Bowditch  his  superior  in 
all  these  particulars,  except  the  mechanism.  But 
you  know  Philadelphia  is  the  heart,  the  censorium, 
the  pineal  gland  of  the  United  States. 

In  politics,  Rittenhouse  was  a  good,  simple,  igno- 
rant, well-meaning,  Franklinian  democrat,  totally 
ignorant  of  the  world.  As  an  anchorite,  an  honest 
dupe  of  the  French  Revolution;   a  mere  instrument 


Correspondence  105 

of  Jonathan  Dickinson  Sargent,  Dr.  Hutchinson, 
Genet,  and  Mifflin,  I  give  him  all  the  credit  of  his 
Planetarium.  The  improvement  of  the  Orrery  to 
the  Planetarium  was  an  easy,  natural  thought,  and 
nothing  was  wanting  but  calculations  of  orbits  Dis- 
tranus,  and  periods  of  revolutions;  all  of  which 
were  made  to  his  hands  long  before  he  existed. 
Patience,  perseverance,  and  sleight  of  hand,  is  his 
undoubted  merit  and  praise.  I  had  read  Taylor  in 
the  Senate,  till  his  style  was  so  familiar  to  me  that  I 
had  not  read  three  pages,  before  I  suspected  the 
author.  I  wrote  a  letter  to  him,  and  he  candidly 
acknowledged  that  the  six  hundred  and  fifty  pages 
were  sent  me  with  his  consent.  I  wait  with  im- 
patience for  the  publication,  and  annunciation  of 
the  work.  Arator  ought  not  to  have  been  adul- 
terated with  politics,  but  his  precept  "  Gather  up  the 
fragments  that  nothing  be  lost,"  is  of  inestimable 
value  in  agriculture  and  horticulture.  Every  weed, 
cob,  husk,  stalk,  ought  to  be  saved  for  manure. 

Your  researches  in  the  laws  of  England  establish- 
ing Christianity  as  the  law  of  the  land,  and  part  of 
the  common  law,  are  curious  and  very  important. 
Questions  without  number  will  arise  in  this  country. 
Religious  controversies,  and  ecclesiastical  contests, 
are  as  common,  and  will  be  as  sharp  as  any  in  civil 
politics,  foreign  and  domestic.  In  what  sense,  and 
to  what  extent  the  Bible  is  law,  may  give  rise  to  as 
many  doubts  and  quarrels  as  any  of  our  civil,. polit- 
ical, military,  or  maritime  laws,  and  will  intermix 


io^  Jefferson's  Works 

with  them  all,  to  irritate  factions  of  every  sort.  I 
dare  not  look  beyond  my  nose  into  futurity.  Our 
money,  our  commerce,  our  religion,  our  National  and 
State  Constitutions,  even  our  arts  and  sciences,  are 
so  many  seed  plots,  of  division,  faction,  sedition  and 
rebellion.  Everything  is  transmuted  into  an  in- 
strument of  electioneering.  Election  is  the  grand 
Brahma,  the  immortal  Lama,  I  had  almost  said,  the 
Juggernaut ;  for  wives  are  almost  ready  to  burn  upon 
the  pile,  and  children  to  be  thrown  under  the  wheel. 
You  will  perceive,  by  these  figures,  that  I  have  been 
looking  into  Oriental  history,  and  Hindoo  religion. 
I  have  read  voyages,  and  travels,  and  everything  I 
could  collect,  and  the  last  is  Priestley's  "  Comparison 
of  the  Institutions  of  Moses  with  those  of  the  Hin- 
doos, and  other  Ancient  Nations,"  a  work  of  great 
labor,  and  not  less  haste.  I  thank  him  for  the  labor, 
and  forgive,  though  I  lament  the  hurry.  You  would 
be  fatigued  to  read,  and  I,  just  recruiting  from  a  little 
longer  confinement  and  indisposition  than  I  have 
had  for  thirty  years,  have  not  strength  to  write  many 
observations.  But  I  have  been  disappointed  in  the 
principal  points  of  my  curiosity: 

ist.  I  am  disappointed  by  finding  that  no  just 
comparison  can  be  made,  because  the  original  Shasta, 
and  the  original  Vedams  are  not  obtained,  or  if  ob- 
tained, not  yet  translated  into  any  European  lan- 
guage. 

2d.  In  not  finding  such  morsels  of  the  sacred  books 
as  have  been  translated  and  published,  which  are 


Correspondence  iof 

more  honorable  to  the  original  Hindoo  religion  than 
anything  he  has  quoted. 

3d.  In  not  finding  a  full  development  of  the  history 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  Metempsychosis  which  origi- 
nated— 

4th.  In  the  history  of  the  rebellion  of  innumerable 
hosts  of  angels  in  Heaven  against  the  Supreme  Being, 
who  after  some  thousands  of  years  of  war,  conquered 
them,  and  hurled  them  down  to  the  regions  of  total 
darkness,  where  they  have  suffered  a  part  of  the  pun- 
ishment of  their  crime,  and  then  were  mercifully 
released  from  prison,  permitted  to  ascend  to  earth, 
and  migrate  into  all  sorts  of  animals,  reptiles,  birds, 
beasts,  and  men,  according  to  their  rank  and  char- 
acter, and  even  into  vegetables,  and  minerals,  there 
to  serve  on  probation.  If  they  passed  without 
reproach  their  several  gradations,  they  were  per- 
mitted to  become  cows  and  men.  If  as  men  they 
behaved  well,  i.  e.,  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  priests, 
they  were  restored  to  their  original  rank  and  bliss 
in  Heaven. 

5th.  In  not  finding  the  Trinity  of  Pythagoras  and 
Plato,  their  contempt  of  matter,  flesh,  and  blood, 
their  almost  adoration  of  fire  and  water,  their 
metempsychosis,  and  even  the  prohibition  of  beans, 
so  evidently  derived  from  India. 

6th.  In  not  finding  the  prophecy  of  Enoch  deduced 
from  India,  in  which  the  fallen  angels  make  such  a 
figure.  But  you  are  weary.  Priestley  has  proved 
the  superiority  of  the  Hebrews  to  the  Hindoos,  as 


io8  Jefferson's  Works 

they  appear  in  the  Gentoo  laws,  and  institutes  of 
Menu ;  but  the  comparison  remains  to  be  made  with 
the  Shasta. 

In  his  remarks  on  Mr.  Dupuis,  page  34?,  Priestley- 
says:  "The  History  of  the  fallen  angels  is  another 
circumstance,  on  which  Mr.  Dupuis  lays  much  stress. 
According  to  the  Christians,  he  says,  Vol.  I,  page  336, 
there  was  from  the  beginning  a  division  among  the 
angels;  some  remaining  faithful  to  the  light,  and 
others  taking  the  part  of  darkness,  etc.;  but  this 
supposed  history  is  not  found  in  the  Scriptures.  It 
has  only  been  inferred,  from  a  wrong  interpretation 
of  one  passage  in  the  2d  epistle  of  Peter,  and  a  cor- 
responding one  in  that  of  Jude,  as  has  been  shown 
by  judicious  writers.  That  there  is  such  a  person 
as,  the  Devil,  is  not  a  part  of  my  faith,  nor  that  of 
many  other  Christians;  nor  am  I  sure  that  it  was 
the  belief  of  any  of  the  Christian  writers.  Neither 
do  I  believe  the  doctrine  of  demoniacal  possessions, 
whether  it  was  believed  by  the  sacred  writers  or  not ; 
and  yet  my  unbelief  in  these  articles  does  not  affect 
my  faith  in  the  great  facts  of  which  the  Evangelists 
were  eye  and  ear  witnesses.  They  might  not  be 
competent  judges  in  the  one  case,  though  perfectly 
so  with  respect  to  the  other." 

I  will  ask  Priestley,  when  I  see  him,  do  you  believe 
those  passages  in  Peter  and  Jude  to  be  interpolations? 
If  so,  by  whom  made?  And  when?  And  where? 
And  for  what  end?  Was  it  to  support,  or  found,  the 
doctrine  of  the  fall  of  man,  original  sin,  the  universal 


Correspondence  i°9 

corruption,  depravation  and  guilt  of  human  nature 
and  mankind;  and  the  subsequent  incarnation  of 
G04  to  make  atonement  and  redemption?  Or  do 
you  think  that  Peter  and  Jude  believed  the  book  of 
Enoch  to  have  been  written  by  the  seventh  from 
Adam,  and  one  of  the  sacred  canonical  books  of  the 
Hebrew  Prophets?  Peter,  2d  epistle,  c.  2d,  v.  4th, 
says,"  For  if  God  spared  not  the  angels  that  sinned, 
but  cast  them  down  to  hell,  and  delivered  them  into 
chains  of  darkness  to  be  reserved  unto  Judgment." 
Jude,  v.  6th,  says, ' '  and  the  angels  which  kept  not  their 
first  estate,  but  left  their  own  habitations,  he  hath 
reserved  in  everlasting  chains  under  darkness,  unto 
the  judgment  of  the  great  day."  Verse  14th,  "And 
Enoch,  also,  the  seventh  from  Adam,  prophesied  of 
these  sayings,  behold  the  Lord  cometh  with  ten 
thousands  of  his  saints,  to  execute  judgment  upon 
all,"  etc.  Priestley  says,  "a  wrong  interpretation" 
has  been  given  to  these  texts.  I  wish  he  had  favored 
us  with  his  right  interpretation  of  them.  In  another 
place,  page  326,  Priestley  says,  "There  is  no  circum- 
stance of  which  Mr.  Dupuis  avails  himself  so  much, 
or  repeats  so  often,  both  with  respect  to  the  Jewish 
and  Christian  religions,  as  the  history  of  the  Fall  of 
Man,  in  the  book  of  Genesis."  I  believe  with  him, 
and  have  maintained  in  my  writings,  that  this  history 
is  either  an  allegory,  or  founded  on  uncertain  tradi- 
tion, that  it  is  an  hypothesis  to  account  for  the 
origin  of  evil,  adopted  by  Moses,  which  by  no  means 
accounts  for  the  facts. 


"*  Jefferson's  Works 

March  3d.  So  far  was  written  almost  a  month 
ago;  but  sickness  has  prevented  progress.  I  had 
much  more  to  say  about  this  work.  I  shall  never 
be  a  disciple  of  Priestley.  He  is  as  absurd,  incon- 
sistent, credulous  and  incomprehensible,  as  Atha- 
nasius.  Read  his  letter  to  the  Jews  in  this  volume. 
Could  a  rational  creature  write  it?  Aye!  such 
rational  creatures  as  Rochefoucauld,  and  Condorcet, 
and  John  Taylor,  in  politics,  and  Towers'  Jurieus, 
and  French  Prophets  in  Theology.  Priestley's  ac- 
count of  the  philosophy  and  religion  of  India,  appears 
to  me  to  be  such  a  work  as  a  man  of  busy  research 
would  produce — who  should  undertake  to  describe 
Christianity  from  the  sixth  to  the  twelfth  century, 
when  a  deluge  of  wonders  overflowed  the  world; 
when  miracles  were  performed  and  proclaimed  from 
every  convent,  and  monastery,  hospital,  churchyard, 
mountain,  valley,  cave  and  cupola. 

There  is  a  book  which  I  wish  I  possessed.  It  has 
never  crossed  the  Atlantic.  It  is  entitled  Acta  Sanc- 
torum, in  forty-seven  volumes  in  folio.  It  contains 
the  lives  of  the  Saints.  It  was  compiled  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  sixteenth  century  by  Bollandus,  Hensche- 
nius  and  Papebrock.  What  would  I  give  to  possess 
in  one  immense  mass,  one  stupendous  draught,  all 
the  legends,  true,  doubtful  and  false! 

These  Bollandists  dared  to  discuss  some  of  the  facts, 
and  hint  that  some  of  them  were  doubtful.  E.g. 
Papebrock  doubted  the  antiquity  of  the  Carmelites 
from  Elias ;  and  whether  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ  was 


Correspondence 


in 


painted  on  the  handkerchief  of  St.  Veronique;  and 
whether  the  prepuce  of  the  Saviour  of  the  world, 
which  was  shown  in  the  church  of  Antwerp,  could 
be  proved  to  be  genuine  ?  For  these  bold  scepticisms 
he  was  libelled  in  pamphlets,  and  denounced  by  the 
Pope,  and  the  Inquisition  in  Spain.  The  Inquisition 
condemned  him ;  but  the  Pope  not  daring  to  acquit 
or  condemn  him,  prohibited  all  writings  pro  and  con. 
But  as  the  physicians  cure  one  disease  by  exciting 
another,  as  a  fever  by  a  salivation,  this  Bull  was  pro- 
duced by  a  new  claim.  The  brothers  of  the  Order 
of  Charity  asserted  a  descent  from  Abraham,  nine 
hundred  years  anterior  to  the  Carmelites. 

A  philosopher  who  should  write  a  description  of 
Christianism  from  the  Bollandistic  Saints  of  the  sixth 
and  tenth  century  would  probably  produce  a  work 
tolerably  parallel  to  Priestley's  upon  the  Hindoos. 


TO    GIDEON    GRANGER,    ESQ. 

Monticello,  March  9,  1814. 
Dear  Sir, — Your  letter  of  February  2  2d  came  to 
hand  on  the  4th  instant.  Nothing  is  so  painful  to 
me  as  appeals  to  my  memory  on  the  subject  t>f  past 
transactions.  From  1775  to  1809,  my  life  was  an 
unremitting  course  of  public  transactions,  so  numer- 
ous, so  multifarious,  and  so  diversified  by  places 
and  persons,  that,  like  the  figures  of  a  magic  lantern, 
their  succession  was  with  a  rapidity  that  scarcely 


H2  Jefferson's  Works 

gave  time  for  fixed  impressions.  Add  to  this  the 
decay  of  memory  consequent  on  advancing  years, 
and  it  will  not  be  deemed  wonderful  that  I  should 
be  a  stranger  as  it  were  even  to  my  own  transactions. 
Of  some  indeed  I  retain  recollections  of  the  particular, 
as  well  as  general  circumstances;  of  others  a  strong 
impression  of  the  general  fact,  with  an  oblivion  of 
particulars;  but  of  a  great  mass,  not  a  trace  either 
of  general  or  particular  remains  in  my  mind.  I  have 
duly  pondered  the  facts  stated  in  your  letter,  and  for 
the  refreshment  of  my  memory  have  gone  over  the 
letters  which  passed  between  us  while  I  was  in  the 
administration  of  the  government,  have  examined 
my  private  notes,  and  such  other  papers  as  could 
assist  me  in  the  recovery  of  the  facts,  and  shall  now 
state  them  seriatim  from  your  letter,  and  give  the 
best  account  of  them  I  am  able  to  derive  from  the 
joint  sources  of  memory  and  papers. 

"I  have  been  denounced  as  a  Burrite;  but  you 
know  that  in  1800  I  sent  Erving  from  Boston  to 
inform  Virginia  of  the  danger  resulting  from  his 
intrigues."  I  well  remember  Mr.  Erving's  visit  to 
this  State  about  that  time,  and  his  suggestions  of 
the  designs  meditated  in  the  quarter  you  mention; 
but  as  my  duties  on  the  occasion  were  to  be  merely 
passive,  he  of  course,  as  I  presume,  addressed  his 
communications  more  particularly  to  those  who 
were  free  to  use  them.  I  do  not  recollect  his 
mentioning  you;  but  I  find  that  in  your  letter 
to  me  of  April  26,  1804,  you  state  your  agency  on 


Correspondence  J 1 3 

that  occasion,  so  that  I  have  no  reason  to  doubt  the 
fact. 

"That  in  1803-4,  on  my  advice,  you  procured 
Erastus  Granger  to  inform  De  Witt  Clinton  of  the 
plan  to  elevate  Burr  in  New  York."  Here  I  do  not 
recollect  the  particulars ;  but  I  have  a  general  recol- 
lection that  Colonel  Burr's  conduct  had  already,  at 
that  date  rendered  his  designs  suspicious ;  that  being 
for  that  reason  laid  aside  by  his  constituents  as  Vice- 
President,  and  aiming  to  become  the  Governor  of 
New  York,  it  was  thought  advisable  that  the  persons 
of  influence  in  that  State  should  be  put  on  their 
guard;  and  Mr.  Clinton  being  eminent,  no  one  was 
more  likely  to  receive  intimations  from  us,  nor  any 
one  more  likely  to  be  confided  in  for  their  communi- 
cation than  yourself.  I  have  no  doubt  therefore  of 
the  fact,  and  the  less  because  in  your  letter  to  me  of 
October  9,  1806,  you  remind  me  of  it. 

About  the  same  period,  that  is,  in  the  winter  of 
1803-04,  another  train  of  facts  took  place  which, 
although  not  specifically  stated  in  your  letter,  I 
think  it  but  justice  to  yourself  that  I  should  state. 
I  mean  the  intrigues  which  were  in  agitation,  and  at 
the  bottom  of  which  we  believed  Colonel  Burr  to  be ; 
to  form  a  coalition  of  the  five  eastern  States,  with 
New  York  and  New  Jersey,  under  the  new  appella- 
tion of  the  seven  eastern  States;  either  to  overawe 
the  Union  by  the  combination  of  their  power  and 
their  will,  or  by  threats  of  separating  themselves 
from  it.     Your  intimacy  with  some  of  those  in  the 

VOL.   XIV 8 


H4  Jefferson's  Works 

secret  gave  you  opportunities  of  searching  into  their 
proceedings,  of  which  you  made  me  daily  and  con- 
fidential reports.  This  intimacy  to  which  I  had  such 
useful  recourse,  at  the  time,  rendered  you  an  object 
of  suspicion  with  many  as  being  yourself  a  partisan 
of  Colonel  Burr,  and  engaged  in  the  very  combination 
which  you  were  faithfully  employed  in  defeating.  I 
never  failed  to  justify  you  to  all  those  who  brought 
their  suspicions  to  me,  and  to  assure  them  of  my 
knowledge  of  your  fidelity.  Many  were  the  indi- 
viduals, then  members  of  the  legislature,  who  re- 
ceived these  assurances  from  me,  and  whose  appre- 
hensions were  thereby  quieted.  This  first  project 
of  Colonel  Burr  having  vanished  in  smoke,  he  directed 
to  the  western  country  those  views  which  are  the  sub- 
ject of  your  next  article. 

"That  in  1806,  I  communicated  by  the  first  mail 
after  I  had  got  knowledge  of  the  fact,  the  supposed 
plans  of  Burr  in  his  western  expedition ;  upon  which 
communication  your  council  was  first  called  together 
to  take  measures  in  relation  to  that  subject."  Not 
exactly  on  that  single  communication;  on  the  15th 
and  1 8th  of  September,  I  had  received  letters  from 
Colonel  George  Morgan,  and  from  a  Mr.  <  Nicholson 
of  New  York,  suggesting  in  a  general  way  the 
manoeuvres  of  Colonel  Burr.  Similar  information 
came  to  the  Secretary  of  State  from  a  Mr.  Williams 
of  New  York.  The  indications,  however,  were  so 
vague  that  I  only  desired  their  increased  attention 
to  the  subject,  and  further  communications  of  what 


Correspondence  1 1 5 

they  should  discover.  Your  letter  of  October  16, 
conveying  the  communications  of  General  Eaton 
to  yourself  and  to  Mr.  Ely,  gave  a  specific  view  of 
the  objects  of  this  new  conspiracy,  and  corroborating 
our  previous  information.  I  called  the  Cabinet  to- 
gether, on  the  2  2d  of  October,  when  specific  measures 
were  adopted  for  meeting  the  dangers  threatened  in 
the  various  points  in  which  they  might  occur.  I  say 
your  letter  of  October  16  gave  this  information, 
because  its  date,  with  the  circumstance  of  it  being 
no  longer  on  my  files,  induce  me  to  infer  it  was  that 
particular  letter,  which  having  been  transferred  to 
the  bundle  of  the  documents  of  that  conspiracy, 
delivered  to  the  Attorney  General,  is  no  longer  in 
my  possession. 

Your  mission  of  Mr.  Pease  on  the  route  to  New 
Orleans,  at  the  time  of  that  conspiracy,  with  powers 
to  see  that  the  mails  were  expected,  and  to  dismiss 
at  once  every  agent  of  the  Post  Office  whose  fidelity 
could  be  justly  doubted,  and  to  substitute  others  on 
the  spot  was  a  necessary  measure,  taken  with  my 
approbation;  and  he  executed  the  trusts  to  my 
satisfaction.  I  do  not  know,  however,  that  my  sub- 
sequent appointment  of  him  to  the  office  of  Surveyor 
General  was  influenced,  as  you  suppose,  by  those 
services.  My  motives  in  that  appointment  were  my 
personal  knowledge  of  his  mathematical  qualifica- 
tions and  satisfactory  informations  of  the  other  parts 
of  his  character. 

With  respect  to  the  dismission  of  the  prosecutions 


n6  Jefferson's  Works 

for  sedition  in  Connecticut,  it  is  well  known  to  have 
been  a  tenet  of  the  republican  portion  of  our  fellow 
citizens,  that  the  sedition  law  was  contrary  to  the 
Constitution  and  therefore  void.  On  this  ground  I 
considered  it  as  a  nullity  wherever  I  met  it  in  the 
course  of  my  duties;  and  on  this  ground  I  directed 
nolle  prosequis  in  all  the  prosecutions  which  had  been 
instituted  under  it,  and  as  far  as  the  public  sentiment 
can  be  inferred  from  the  occurrences  of  the  day,  we 
may  say  that  this  opinion  had  the  sanction  of  the 
nation.  The  prosecutions,  therefore,  which  were 
afterwards  instituted  in  Connecticut,  of  which  two 
were  against  printers,  two  against  preachers,  and 
one  against  a  judge,  were  too  inconsistent  with  this 
principle  to  be  permitted  to  go  on.  We  were  bound 
to  administer  to  others  the  same  measure  of  law,  not 
which  they  had  meted  to  us,  but  we  to  ourselves,  and 
to  extend  to  all  equally  the  protection  of  the  same  con- 
stitutional principles.  These  prosecutions,  too,  were 
chiefly  for  charges  against  myself,  and  I  had  from  the 
beginning  laid  it  down  as  a  rule  to  notice  nothing  of 
the  kind.  I  believed  that  the  long  course  of  services 
in  which  I  had  acted  on  the  public  stage,  and  under 
the  eye  of  my  fellow  citizens,  furnished  better  evi- 
dence to  them  of  my  character  and  principles,  than 
the  angry  invectives  of  adverse  partisans  in  whose 
eyes  the  very  acts  most  approved  by  the  majority 
were  subjects  of  the  greatest  demerit  and  censure. 
These  prosecutions  against  them,  therefore,  were  to 
be  dismissed  as  a  matter  of  duty.     But  I  wished  it 


Correspondence  i  *  7 

to  be  done  with  all  possible  respect  to  the  worthy 
citizens  who  had  advised  them,  and  in  such  way  as 
to  spare  their  feelings  which  had  been  justly  irritated 
by  the  intemperance  of  their  adversaries.  As  you 
were  of  that  State  and  intimate  with  these  char- 
acters, the  business  was  confided  to  you,  and  you 
executed  it  to  my  perfect  satisfaction. 

These  I  think  are  all  the  particular  facts  on  which 
you  have  asked  my  testimony,  and  I  add  with  pleas- 
ure, and  under  a  sense  of  duty,  the  declaration  that 
the  increase  of  rapidity  in  the  movement  of  the  mails 
which  had  been  vainly  attempted  before,  were 
readily  undertaken  by  you  on  your  entrance  into 
office,  and  zealously  and  effectually  carried  into 
execution,  and  that  the  affairs  of  the  office  were 
conducted  by  you  with  ability  and  diligence,  so  long 
as  I  had  opportunities  of  observing  them. 

With  respect  to  the  first  article  mentioned  in  your 
letter,  in  which  I  am  neither  concerned  nor  consulted, 
I  will  yet,  as  a  friend,  volunteer  my  advice.  I  never 
knew  anything  of  it,  nor  would  ever  listen  to  such 
gossiping  trash.  Be  assured,  my  dear  Sir,  that  the 
dragging  such  a  subject  before  the  public  will  excite 
universal  reprobation,  and  they  will  drown  in  their 
indignation  all  the  solid  justifications  which  they 
would  otherwise  have  received  and  weighed  with 
candor.  Consult  your  own  experience,  reflect  on 
the  similar  cases  which  have  happened  within  your 
own  knowledge,  and  see  if  ever  there  was  a  single 
one  in  which  such  a  mode  of  recrimination  procured 


nS  Jefferson's  Works 

favor  to  him  who  used  it.  You  may  give  pain  where 
perhaps  you  wish  it,  but  be  assured  it  will  re-act  on 
yourself  with  double  though  delayed  effect,  and  that 
it  will  be  one  of  those  incidents  of  your  life  on  which 
you  will  never  reflect  with  satisfaction.  Be  advised, 
then;  erase  it  even  from  your  memory,  and  stand 
erect  before  the  world  on  the  high  ground  of  your 
own  merits,  without  stooping  to  what  is  unworthy 
either  of  your  or  their  notice.  Remember  that  we 
often  repent  of  what  we  have  said,  but  never, 
never  of  that  which  we  have  not.  You  may  have 
time  enough  hereafter  to  mend  your  hold,  if  ever  it 
can  be  mended  by  such  matter  as  that.  Take  time 
then,  and  do  not  commit  your  happiness  and  public 
estimation  by  too  much  precipitancy.  I  am  entirely 
uninformed  of  the  state  of  things  which  you  say 
exists,  and  which  will  oblige  you  to  make  a  solemn 
appeal  to  the  nation,  in  vindication  of  your  char- 
acter. But  whatever  that  be,  I  feel  it  a  duty  to  bear 
testimony  to  the  truth,  and  I  have  suggested  with 
frankness  other  considerations  occurring  to  myself, 
because  I  wish  you  well,  and  I  add  sincere  assurances 
of  my  great  respect  and  esteem. 


TO    HORATIO    G.    SPAFFORD. 

Monticello,  March  17,   18 14. 

Dear  Sir, — I  am  an  unpunctual  correspondent  at 
best.  While  my  affairs  permit  me  to  be  within  doors, 
I  am  too  apt  to  take  up  a  book  and  to  forget  the  calls 


Correspondence  119 

of  the  writing-table.  Besides  this,  I  pass  a  consider- 
able portion  of  my  time  at  a  possession  so  distant,  and 
uncertain  as  to  its  mails,  that  my  letters  always  await 
my  return  here.  This  must  apologize  for  my  being 
so  late  in  acknowledging  your  two  favors  of  Decem- 
ber 17th  and  January  28th,  as  also  that  of  the  Gazet- 
teer, which  came  safely  to  hand.  I  have  read  it  with 
pleasure,  and  derived  from  it  much  information 
which  I  did  not  possess  before.  I  wish  we  had  as 
full  a  statement  as  to  all  our  States.  We  should 
know  ourselves  better,  our  circumstances  and  re- 
sources, and  the  advantageous  ground  we  stand  on 
as  a  whole.  We  are  certainly  much  indebted  to  you 
for  this  fund  of  valuable  information.  I  join  in  your 
reprobation  of  our  merchants,  priests,  and  lawyers, 
for  their  adherence  to  England  and  monarchy,  in 
preference  to  their  own  country  and  its  Constitution. 
But  merchants  have  no  country.  The  mere  spot 
they  stand  on  does  not  constitute  so  strong  an  attach- 
ment as  that  from  which  they  draw  their  gains.  In 
every  country  and  in  every  age,  the  priest  has  been 
hostile  to  liberty.  He  is  always  in  alliance  with  the 
despot,  abetting  his  abuses  in  return  for  protection 
to  his  own.  It  is  easier  to  acquire  wealth  and  power 
by  this  combination  than  by  deserving  them,  and  to 
effect  this,  they  have  perverted  the  purest  religion 
ever  preached  to  man  into  mystery  and  jargon,  unin- 
telligible to  all  mankind,  and  therefore  the  safer 
engine  for  their  purposes.  With  the  lawyers  it  is  a 
new  thing.     They  have,  in  the  Mother  country,  been 


1 20  Jefferson's  Works 

generally  the  firmest  supporters  of  the  free  principles 
of  their  constitution.  But  there  too  they  have 
changed.  I  ascribe  much  of  this  to  the  substitution 
of  Blackstone  for  my  Lord  Coke,  as  an  elementary 
work.  In  truth,  Blackstone  and  Hume  have  made 
tories  of  all  England,  and  are  making  tories  of  those 
young  Americans  whose  native  feelings  of  independ- 
ence do  not  place  them  above  the  wily  sophistries  of 
a  Hume  or  a  Blackstone.  These  two  books,  but 
especially  the  former,  have  done  more  towards  the 
suppression  of  the  liberties  of  man,  than  all  the  mil- 
lion of  men  in  arms  of  Bonaparte  and  the  millions  of 
human  lives  with  the  sacrifice  of  which  he  will  stand 
loaded  before  the  judgment  seat  of  his  Maker.  I 
fear  nothing  for  our  liberty  from  the  assaults  of  force ; 
but  I  have  seen  and  felt  much,  and  fear  more  from 
English  books,  English  prejudices,  English  manners, 
and  the  apes,  the  dupes,  and  designs  among  our  pro- 
fessional crafts.  When  I  look  around  me  for  security 
against  these  seductions,  I  find  it  in  the  wide  spread 
of  our  agricultural  citizens,  in  their  unsophisticated 
minds,  their  independence  and  their  power,  if  called 
on,  to  crush  the  Humists  of  our  cities,  and  to  main- 
tain the  principles  which  severed  us  from  England. 
I  see  our  safety  in  the  extent  of  our  confederacy,  and 
in  the  probability  that  in  the  proportion  of  that  the 
sound  parts  will  always  be  sufficient  to  crush  local 
poisons.  In  this  hope  I  rest,  and  tender  you  the 
assurance  of  my  esteem  and  respect. 


Correspondence  121 

TO    L.    H.    GIRARDIN. 

Monticello,  March  18,   1814. 

Dear  Sir, — According  to  your  request  of  the  other 
day,  I  send  you  my  formula  and  explanation  of  Lord 
Napier's  theorem,  for  the  solution  of  right-angled 
spherical  triangles.  With  you  I  think  it  strange  that 
the  French  mathematicians  have  not  used  or  noticed 
this  method  more  than  they  have  done.  Montucla, 
in  his  account  of  Lord  Napier's  inventions,  expresses 
a  like  surprise  at  this  fact,  and  does  justice  to  the 
ingenuity,  the  elegance,  and  convenience  of  the 
theorem,  which,  by  a  single  rule  easily  preserved  in 
the  memory,  supplies  the  whole  table  of  cases  given 
in  the  books  of  spherical  trigonometry.  Yet  he  does 
not  state  the  rule,  but  refers  for  it  to  Wolf,  "  Cours  de 
Mathematiques. ' '  I  have  not  the  larger  work  of  Wolf ; 
and  in  the  French  translation  of  his  abridgment,  (by 
some  member  of  the  Congregation  of  St.  Maur,)  the 
branch  of  spherical  trigonomtery  is  entirely  omitted. 
Potter,  one  of  the  English  authors  of  Courses  of 
Mathematics,  has  given  the  catholic  proposition,  as 
it  is  called,  but  in  terms  unintelligible,  and  leading 
to  error,  until,  by  repeated  trials,  we  have  ascer- 
tained the  meaning  of  some  of  his  equivocal  expres- 
sions. In  Robert  Simson's  Euclid  we  have  the 
theorem  with  its  demonstrations,  but  less  aptly  for 
the  memory,  divided  into  two  rules,  and  these  are 
extended  as  the  original  was,  only  to  the  cases  of 
right-angled   triangles.     Hutton,   in   his   Course   of 


*2Q  Jefferson's  Works 

Mathematics,  declines  giving  the  rules,  as  "*too  arti- 
ficial to  be  applied  by  young  computists. "  But  I 
do  not  think  this.  It  is  true  that  when  we  use  them, 
their  demonstration  is  not  always  present  to  the 
mind;  but  neither  is  this  the  case  generally  in  using 
mathematical  theorems,  or  in  the  various  steps  of 
an  algebraical  process.  We  act  on  them,  however, 
mechanically,  and  with  confidence,  as  truths  of  which 
we  have  heretofore  been  satisfied  by  demonstration, 
although  we  do  not  at  the  moment  retrace  the  pro- 
cesses which  establish  them.  Hutton,  however,  in 
his  Mathematical  Dictionary,  under  the  terms  "cir- 
cular parts,"  and  "  extremes,"  has  given  us  the  rules, 
and  in  all  their  extensions  to  oblique  spherical,  and 
to  plane  triangles.  I  have  endeavored  to  reduce 
them  to  a  form  best  adapted  to  my  own  frail  memory, 
by  couching  them  in  the  fewest  words  possible,  and 
such  as  cannot,  I  think,  mislead,  or  be  misunderstood. 
My  formula,  with  the  explanation  which  may  be 
necessary  for  your  pupils,  is  as  follows : 

Lord  Napier  noted  first  the  parts,  or  elements  of  a 
triangle,  to  wit,  the  sides  and  angles;  and  expunging 
from  these  the  right  angle,  as  if  it  were  a  non-exist- 
ence, he  considered  the  other  five  parts,  to  wit,  the 
three  sides,  and  two  oblique  angles,  as  arranged  in  a 
circle,  and  therefore  called  them  the  circular  parts; 
but  chose,  (for  simplifying  the  result,)  instead  of  the 
hypothenuse  and  two  oblique  angles,  themselves,  to 
substitute  their  complements.  So  that  his  five  cir- 
cular parts  are  the  two  legs  themselves,  and  the  com- 


Correspondence  1 23 

plements  of  the  hypothenuse  and  of  the  two  oblique 
angles.  If  the  three  of  these,  given  and  required, 
were  all  adjacent,  he  called  it  the  case  of  conjunct 
parts,  the  middle  element  the  middle  part,  and  the 
two  others  the  extremes  disjunct  from  the  middle 
or  extremes  disjunct.  He  then  laid  down  his 
catholic  rule,  to  wit: 

"  The  rectangle  of  the  radius,  and  sine  of  the  mid- 
dle part,  is  equal  to  the  rectangle  of  the  tangents  of 
the  two  extremes  conjunct,  and  to  that  of  the 
cosines  of  the  two  extremes  disjunct." 

And  to  aid  our  recollection  in  which  case  the  tan- 
gents, and  in  which  the  cosines  are  to  be  used,  pre- 
serving the  original,  designations  of  the  inventor,  we 
may  observe  that  the  tangent  belongs  to  the  conjunct 
case,  terms  of  sufficient  affinity  to  be  associated  in 
the  memory;  and  the  sine  complement  remains  of 
course  for  the  disjunct  case;  and  further,  if  you 
please,  that  the  initials'  of  radius  and  sine,  which  are 
to  be  used  together,  are  alphabetical  consecutives. 

Lord  Napier's  rule  may  also  be  used  for  the  solu- 
tion of  oblique  spherical  triangles.  For  this  purpose 
a  perpendicular  must  be  let  fall  from  an  angle  of  the 
given  triangle  internally  on  the  base,  forming  it  into 
two  right-angled  triangles,  one  of  which  may  contain 
two  of  the  data.  Or,  if  this  cannot  be  done,  then 
letting  it  fall  externally  on  the  prolongation  of  the 
base,  so  as  to  form  a  right-angled  triangle  compre- 
hending the  oblique  one,  wherein  two  of  the  data 
will  be  common  to  both.     To  secure  two  of  the  data 


i24  Jefferson's  Works 

from  mutilation,  this  perpendicular  must  always  be 
let  fall  from  the  end  of  a  given  side,  and  opposite  to 
a  given  angle. 

But  there  will  remain  yet  two  cases  wherein  Lord 
Napier's  rule  cannot  be  used,  to  wit,  where  all  the 
sides,  or  all  the  angles  alone  are  given.  To  meet 
these  two  cases,  Lord  Buchan  and  Dr.  Minto  devised 
an  analogous  rule.  They  considered  the  sides  them- 
selves, and  the  supplements  of  the  angles  as  circular 
parts  in  these  cases;  and,  dropping  a  perpendicular 
from  any  angle  from  which  it  would  fall  internally 
on  the  opposite  side,  they  assumed  that  angle,  or 
that  side,  as  the  middle  part,  and  the  other  angles, 
or  other  sides,  as  the  opposite  or  extreme  parts, 
disjunct  in  both  cases.  Then  '  'the  rectangle  under 
the  tangents  of  half  the  sum,  and  half  the  difference 
of  the  segments  of  the  middle  part,  is  equal  to  the 
rectangle  under  the  tangents  of  half  the  sums,  and 
half  the  difference  of  the  opposite  parts." 

And,  since  every  plane  triangle  may  be  considered 
as  described  on  the  surface  of  a  sphere  of  an  infinite 
radius,  these  two  rules  may  be  applied  to  plane  right- 
angled  triangles,  and  through  them  to  the  oblique. 
But  as  Lord  Napier's  rule  gives  a  direct  solution  only 
in  the  case  of  two  sides,  and  an  uncomprised  angle, 
one,  two,  or  three  operations,  with  this  combination 
of  parts,  may  be  necessary  to  get  at  that  required. 

You  likewise  requested  for  the  use  of  your  school, 
an  explanation  of  a  method  of  platting  the  courses 
of  a  survey,  which  I  mentioned  to  you  as  of  my  own 


Correspondence  125 

practice.  This  is  so  obvious  and  simple,  that  as  it 
occurred  to  myself,  so  I  presume  it  has  to  others, 
although  I  have  not  seen  it  stated  in  any  of  the  books. 
For  drawing  parallel  lines,  I  use  the  triangular  rule, 
the  hypothenusal  side  of  which  being 
applied  to  the  side  of  a  common  straight 
rule,  the  triangle  slides  on  that,  as  thus, 
always  parallel  to  itself.  Instead  of 
drawing  meridians  on  his  paper,  let  the 
pupil  draw  a  parallel  of  latitude,  or  east 
and  west  line,  and  note  in  that  a  point  for  his  first 
station,  then  applying  to  it  his  protractor,  lay  off 
the  first  course  and  distance  in  the  usual  way  to  ascer- 
tain his  second  station.  For  the  second  course,  lay 
the  triangular  rule  to  the  east  and  west  line,  or  first 
parallel,  holding  the  straight  or  guide  rule  firmly 
against  its  hypothenusal  side.  Then  slide  up  the 
triangle  (for  a  northerly  course)  to  the  point  of  his 
second  station,  and  pressing  it  firmly  there,  lay  the 
protractor  to  that,  and  mark  off  the  second  course, 
and  distance  as  before,  for  the  third  station.  Then 
lay  the  triangle  to  the  first  parallel  again,  and  sliding 
it  as  before  to  the  point  of  the  third  station,  there 
apply  to  it  the  protractor  for  the  third  course  and 
distance,  which  gives  the  fourth  station;  and  so  on. 
Where  a  course  is  southwardly,  lay  the  protractor, 
as  before,  to  the  northern  edge  of  the  triangle,  but 
prick  its  reversed  course,  which  reversed  again  in 
drawing,  gives  the  true  course.  When  the  station 
has  got  so  far  from  the  first  parallel,  as  to  be  out  of 


i26  Jefferson's  Works 

the  reach  of  the  parallel  rule  sliding  on  its  hypothe- 
nuse,  another  parallel  must  be  drawn  by  laying  the 
edge,  or  longer  leg  of  the  triangle  to  the 
first  parallel  as  before,  applying  the  guide- 
rule  to  the  end,  or  short  leg,  (instead  of 
the  hypothenuse,)  as  in  the  margin,  and 
sliding  the  triangle  up  to  the  point  for  the  new  paral- 
lel. I  have  found  this,  in  practice,  the  quickest  and 
most  correct  method  of  platting  which  I  have  ever 
tried,  and  the  neatest  also,  because  it  disfigures  the 
paper  with  the  fewest  unnecessary  lines. 

If  these  mathematical  trifles  can  give  any  facilities 
to  your  pupils,  they  may  in  their  hands  become  mat- 
ters of  use,  as  in  mine  they  have  been  of  amusement 
only. 

Ever  and  respectfully  yours. 


to  monsieur  n.  g.  dufief. 

Monticello,  April  19,   1814. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  the  6th  instant  is  just 
received,  and  I  shall  with  equal  willingness  and  truth, 
state  the  degree  of  agency  you  had,  respecting  the 
copy  of  M.  de  Becourt's  book,  which  came  tc  my 
hands.  That  gentleman  informed  me,  by  letter,  that 
he  was  about  to  publish  a  volume  in  French,  '  'Sur 
la  Creation  du  Monde,  un  Systeme  d 'Organisation 
Primitive,"  which,  its  title  promised  to  be,  either  a 
geological  or  astronomical  work.  I  subscribed;  and, 
when  published,  he  sent  me  a  copy ;  and  as  you  were 


Correspondence  * 2  7 

my  correspondent  in  the  book  line  in  Philadelphia. 
I  took  the  liberty  of  desiring  him  to  call  on  you  for 
the  price,  which,  he  afterwards  informed  me,  you 
were  so  kind  as  to  pay  him  for  me,  being,  I  believe, 
two  dollars.  But  the  sole  copy  which  came  to  me 
was  from  himself  directly,  and,  as  far  as  I  know,  was 
never  seen  by  you. 

I  am  really  mortified  to  be  told  that,  in  the  United 
States  of  America,  a  fact  like  this  can  become  a  sub- 
ject of  inquiry,  and  of  criminal  inquiry  too,  as  an 
offence  against  religion;  that  a  question  about  the 
sale  of  a  book  can  be  carried  before  the  civil  magis- 
trate. Is  this  then  our  freedom  of  religion  ?  and  are 
we  to  have  a  censor  whose  imprimatur  shall  say  what 
books  may  be  sold,  and  what  we  may  buy?  And 
who  is  thus  to  dogmatize  religious  opinions  for  our 
citizens?  Whose  foot  is  to  be  the  measure  to  which 
ours  are  all  to  be  cut  or  stretched?  Is  a  priest  to  be 
our  inquisitor,  or  shall  a  layman,  simple  as  ourselves, 
set  up  his  reason  as  the  rule  for  what  we  are  to  read, 
and  what  we  must  believe?  It  is  an  insult  to  our 
citizens  to  question  whether  they  are  rational  beings 
or  not,  and  blasphemy  against  religion  to  suppose  it 
cannot  stand  the  test  of  truth  and  reason.  If  M.  de 
Becourt's  book  be  false  in  its  facts,  disprove  them; 
if  false  in  its  reasoning,  refute  it.  But,  for  God's 
sake,  let  us  freely  hear  both  sides,  if  we  choose.  I 
know  little  of  its  contents,  having  barely  glanced 
over  here  and  there  a  passage,  and  over  the  table  of 
contents.     From    this,    the    Newtonian    philosophy 


i28  Jefferson's  Works 

seemed  the  chief  object  of  attack,  the  issue  of  which 
might  be  trusted  to  the  strength  of  the  two  com- 
batants ;  Newton  certainly  not  needing  the  auxiliary 
arm  of  the  government,  and  still  less  the  holy  Author 
of  our  religion,  as  to  what  in  it  concerns  Him.  I 
thought  the  work  would  be  very  innocent,  and  one 
which  might  be  confided  to  the  reason  of  any  man; 
not  likely  to  be  much  read  if  let  alone,  but,  if  perse- 
cuted, it  will  be  generally  read.  Every  man  in  the 
United  States  will  think  it  a  duty  to  buy  a  copy,  in 
vindication  of  his  right  to  buy,  and  to  read  what  he 
pleases.  I  have  been  just  reading  the  new  constitu- 
tion of  Spain.  One  of  its  fundamental  bases  is  ex- 
pressed in  these  words:  "The  Roman  Catholic  reli- 
gion, the  only  true  one,  is,  and  always  shall  be,  that 
of  the  Spanish  nation.  The  government  protects 
it  by  wise  and  just  laws,  and  prohibits  the  exercise 
of  any  other  whatever."  Now  I  wish  this  presented 
to  those  who  question  what  you  may  sell,  or  we  may 
buy,  with  a  request  to  strike  out  the  words,  "  Roman 
Catholic,"  and  to  insert  the  denomination  of  their 
own  religion.  This  would  ascertain  the  code  of 
dogmas  which  each  wishes  should  domineer  over  the 
opinions  of  all  others,  and  be  taken,  like  the  Spanish 
religion,  under  the  "  protection  of  wise  and  just  laws. " 
It  would  show  to  what  they  wish  to  reduce  the  liberty 
for  which  one  generation  has  sacrificed  life  and  hap- 
piness. It  would  present  our  boasted  freedom  of 
religion  as  a  thing  of  theory  only,  and  not  of  practice, 
as  what  would  be  a  poor  exchange  for  the  theoretic 


Correspondence  129 

thraldom,  but  practical  freedom  of  Europe.  But  it 
is  impossible  that  the  laws  of  Pennsylvania,  which 
set  us  the  first  example  of  the  wholesome  and  happy 
effects  of  religious  freedom,  can  permit  the  inquisi- 
torial functions  to  be  proposed  to  their  courts.  Under 
them  you  are  surely  safe. 

At  the  date  of  yours  of  the  6th,  you  had  not  re- 
ceived mine  of  the  3d  instant,  asking  a  copy  of  an 
edition  of  Newton's  Principia,  which  I  had  seen 
advertised.  When  the  cost  of  that  shall  be  known, 
it  shall  be  added  to  the  balance  of  $4.93,  and  incor- 
porated with  a  larger  remittance  I  have  to  make  to 
Philadelphia.  Accept  the  assurance  of  my  great 
esteem  and  respect. 


TO    CHEVALIER    LUIS    DE    ONIS. 

Monticello,  April  28,   1814. 

I  thank  you,  Sir,  for  the  copy  of  the  new  constitu- 
tion of  Spain  which  you  have  been  so  kind  as  to  send 
me;  and  I  sincerely  congratulate  yourself  and  the 
Spanish  nation  on  this  great  stride  towards  political 
happiness.  The  invasion  of  Spain  has  been  the  most 
unprecedented  and  unprincipled  of  the  transactions 
of  modern  times.  The  crimes  of  its  enemies,  the 
licentiousness  of  its  associates  in  defence,  the  exer- 
tions and  sufferings  of  its  inhabitants  under  slaughter 
and  famine,  and  its  consequent  depopulation,  will 
mark  indelibly  the  baneful  ascendency  of  the  tyrants 
of  the  sea  and  continent,  and  characterize  with  blood 


J3°  Jefferson's  Works 

and  wretchedness  the  age  in  which  they  have  lived. 
Yet  these  sufferings  of  Spain  will  be  remunerated, 
her  population  restored  and  increased,  under  the 
auspices  and  protection  of  this  new  constitution ;  and 
the  miseries  of  the  present  generation  will  be  the 
price,  and  even  the  cheap  price  of  the  prosperity  of 
endless  generations  to  come. 

There  are  parts  of  this  constitution,  however,  in 
which  you  would  expect  of  course  that  we  should  not 
concur.  One  of  these  is  the  intolerance  of  all  but 
the  Catholic  religion;  and  no  security  provided 
against  the  re-establishment  of  an  Inquisition,  the 
exclusive  judge  of  Catholic  opinions,  and  authorized 
to  proscribe  and  punish  those  it  shall  deem  anti- 
Catholic.  Secondly,  the  aristocracy,  quater  subli- 
mata}  of  her  legislators;  for  the  ultimate  electors  of 
these  will  themselves  have  been  three  times  sifted 
from  the  mass  of  the  people,  and  may  choose  from 
the  nation  at  large  persons  never  named  by  any  of 
the  electoral  bodies.  But  there  is  one  provision 
which  will  immortalize  its  inventors.  It  is  that 
which,  after  a  certain  epoch,  disfranchises  every 
citizen  who  cannot  read  and  write.  This  is  new,  and 
is  the  fruitful  germ  of  the  improvement  of  every- 
thing good,  and  the  correction  of  everything  imper- 
fect in  the  present  constitution.  This  will  give 
you  an  enlightened  people,  and  an  energetic  public 
opinion  which  will  control  and  enchain  the  aristo- 
cratic spirit  of  the  government.  On  the  whole  I  hail 
your  country  as  now  likely  to  resume  and  surpass 


Correspondence  *  3 l 

its  ancient  splendor  among  nations.  This  might 
perhaps  have  been  better  secured  by  a  just  confidence 
in  the  self-sufficient  strength  of  the  peninsula  itself; 
everything  without  its  limits  being  its  weakness,  not 
its  force.  If  the  Mother  country  has  not  the  magna- 
nimity to  part  with  the  colonies  in  friendship,  thereby 
making  them,  what  they  would  certainly  be,  her 
natural  and  firmest  allies,  these  will  emancipate 
themselves,  after  exhausting  her  strength  and  re- 
sources in  ineffectual  efforts  to  hold  them  in  subjec- 
tion. They  will  be  rendered  enemies  of  the  Mother 
country,  as  England  has  rendered  us  by  an  unremit- 
ting course  of  insulting  injuries  and  silly  provocations. 
I  do  not  say  this  from  the  impulse  of  national  interest, 
for  I  do  not  know  that  the  United  States  would  find 
an  interest  in  the  independence  of  neighbor  nations, 
whose  produce  and  commerce  would  rivalize  ours. 
It  could  only  be  that  kind  of  interest  which  every 
human  being  has  in  the  happiness  and  prosperity  of 
every  other.  But  putting  right  and  reason  out  of 
the  question,  I  have  no  doubt  that  on  calculations 
of  interest  alone,  it  is  that  of  Spain  to  anticipate 
voluntary,  and  as  a  matter  of  grace,  the  independ- 
ence of  her  colonies,  which  otherwise  necessity  will 
enforce. 


TO    JOSEPH    DELAPLAINE. 

Monticello,  May  3,   1814. 
Sir, — Your  favors  of  April   16   and    19,   on  the 
subject  of  the  portraits  of  Columbus  and  Americus 


i32  Jefferson's  Works 

Vespucius,  were  received  on  the  30th.  While  I 
resided  at  Paris,  knowing  that  these  portraits  and 
those  of  some  other  of  the  early  American  worthies 
were  in  the  gallery  of  Medicis  at  Florence,  I  took 
measures  for  engaging  a  good  artist  to  take  and 
send  me  copies  of  them.  I  considered  it  as  even 
of  some  public  concern  that  our  country  should  not 
be  without  the  portraits  of  its  first  discoverers. 
These  copies  have  already  run  the  risks  of  trans- 
portations from  Florence  to  Paris,  to  Philadelphia, 
to  Washington,  and  lastly  to  this  place,  where 
they  are  at  length  safely  deposited.  You  request 
me  "  to  forward  them  to  you  at  Philadelphia  for 
the  purpose  of  having  engravings  taken  from  them 
for  a  work  you  propose  to  publish,  and  you  pledge 
your  honor  that  they  shall  be  restored  to  me  in 
perfect  safety."  I  have  no  doubt  of  the  sincerity 
of  your  intentions  in  this  pledge;  and  that  it  would 
be  complied  with  as  far  as  it  would  be  in  your 
power.  But  the  injuries  and  accidents  of  their 
transportation  to  Philadelphia  and  back  again  are 
not  within  your  control.  Besides  the  rubbing 
through  a  land  carriage  of  six  hundred  miles,  a 
carriage  may  overset  in  a  river  or  creek,  or  be  crushed 
with  everything  in  it.  The  frequency  of  such 
accidents  to  the  stages  renders  all  insurance  against 
them  impossible.  And  were  they  to  escape  the 
perils  of  this  journey,  I  should  be  liable  to  the  same 
calls,  and  they  to  the  same  or  greater  hazards,  from 
all  those  in  other  parts  of  the  continent  who  should 


Correspondence  *33 

propose  to  publish  any  work  in  which  they  might 
wish  to  employ  engravings  of  the  same  characters. 
From  public,  therefore,  as  well  as  private  consider- 
ations, I  think  that  these  portraits  ought  not  to  be 
hazarded  from  their  present  deposit.  Like  public 
records,  I  make  them  free  to  be  copied,  but,  being 
as  originals  in  this  country,  they  should  not  be 
exposed  to  the  accidents  or  injuries  of  travelling  post. 
While  I  regret,  therefore,  the  necessity  of  declining 
to  comply  with  your  request,  I  freely  and  with 
pleasure  offer  to  receive  as  a  guest  any  artist  whom 
you  shall  think  proper  to  engage,  and  will  make 
them  welcome  to  take  copies  at  their  leisure  for 
your  use.  I  wish  them  to  be  multiplied  for  safe 
preservation,  and  consider  them  as  worthy  a  place 
in  every  collection.  Indeed  I  do  not  know  how 
it  happened  that  Mr.  Peale  did  not  think  of  copying 
them  while  they  were  in  Philadelphia;  and  I  think 
it  not  impossible  that  either  the  father  or  the  son 
might  now  undertake  the  journey  for  the  use  of 
their  museum.  On  the  ground  of  our  personal 
esteem  for  them,  they  would  be  at  home  in  my 
family. 

When  I  received  these  portraits  at  Paris,  Mr. 
Daniel  Parker  of  Massachusetts  happened  to  be 
there,  and  determined  to  procure  for  himself  copies 
from  the  same  originals  at  Florence;  and  I  think 
he  did  obtain  them,  and  that  I  have  heard  of  their 
being  in  the  hands  of  some  one  in  Boston.  If  so, 
it  might  perhaps  be  easier  to  get  some  artist  there 


1 34  Jefferson^  Works 

to  take  and  send  you  copies.  But  be  this  as  it 
may,  you  are  perfectly  welcome  to  the  benefit  of 
mine  in  the  way  I  have  mentioned. 

The  two  original  portraits  of  myself  taken  by 
Mr.  Stuart,  after  which  you  enquire,  are  both 
in  his  possession  at  Boston.  One  of  them  only  is 
my  property.  The  President  has  a  copy  from  that 
which  Stuart  considered  as  the  best  of  the  two; 
but  I  believe  it  is  at  his  seat  in  his  State. 

I  thank  you  for  the  print  of  Dr.  Rush.  He  was 
one  of  my  early  and  intimate  friends,  and  among 
the  best  of  men.  The  engraving  is  excellent  as  is 
everything  from  the  hand  of  Mr.  Edwin.  Accept 
the  assurance  of  my  respect,  and  good  wishes  for 
the  success  of  your  work. 


TO    JOHN    F.    WATSON. 

Monticello,  May  17,   1814. 

Sir, — I  have  long  been  a  subscriber  to  the  edition 
of  the  Edinburgh  Review  first  published  by  Mr. 
Sargeant,  and  latterly  by  Eastburn,  Kirk  &  Co., 
and  already  possess  from  No.  30  to  42  inclusive; 
except  that  Nos.  31  and  37  never  came  to  hand. 
These  two  and  No.  29,  I  should  be  glad  to  receive, 
with  all  subsequently  published,  through  the  channel 
of  Messrs.  Fitzwhylson  &  Potter  of  Richmond, 
with  whom  I  originally  subscribed,  and  to  whom 
it  is  more  convenient  to  make  payment  by  a  stand- 
ing order  on  my  correspondent  at  Richmond.     I 


Correspondence  135 

willingly  also  subscribe  for  the  republication  of 
the  first  twenty-eight  numbers  to  be  furnished  me 
through  the  same  channel,  for  the  convenience  of 
payment.  This  work  is  certainly  unrivalled  in 
merit,  and  if  continued  by  the  same  talents,  infor- 
mation and  principles  which  distinguish  it  in 
every  department  of  science  which  it  reviews,  it 
will  become  a  real  Encyclopedia,  justly  taking  its 
station  in  our  libraries  with  the  most  valuable 
depositories  of  human  knowledge.  Of  the  Quarterly 
Review  I  have  not  seen  many  numbers.  As  the 
antagonist  of  the  other  it  appears  to  me  a  pigmy 
against  a  giant.  The  precept  "audi  alteram  par- 
tem," on  which  it  is  republished  here,  should  be 
sacred  with  the  judge  who  is  to  decide  between 
the  contending  claims  of  individual  and  individual. 
It  is  well  enough  for  the  young  who  have  yet  opinions 
to  make  up  in  questions  of  principle  in  ethics  or 
politics.  But  to  those  who  have  gone  through  this 
process  with  industry,  reflection,  and  singleness  of 
heart,  who  have  formed  their  conclusions  and  acted 
on  them  through  life,  to  be  reading  over  and  over 
again  what  they  have  already  read,  considered  and 
condemned,  is  an  idle  waste  of  time.  It  is  not  in 
the  history  of  modern  England  or  among  the  advo- 
cates of  the  principles  or  practices  of  her  govern- 
ment, that  the  friend  of  freedom,  or  of  po  itical 
morality,  is  to  seek  instruction.  There  has  indeed 
been  a  period,  during  which  both  were  to  be  found, 
not  in  her  government,  but  in  the  band  of  worthies 


1 36  Jefferson's  Works 

who  so  boldly  and  ably  reclaimed  the  rights  of  the 
people,  and  wrested  from  their  government  theoretic 
acknowledgments  of  them.  This  period  began  with 
the  Stuarts,  and  continued  but  one  reign  after 
them.  Since  that,  the  vital  principle  of  the  English 
constitution  is  corruption,  its  practices  the  natural 
results  of  that  principle,  and  their  consequences  a 
pampered  aristocracy,  annihilation  of  the  substan- 
tial middle  class,  a  degraded  populace,  oppressive 
taxes,  general  pauperism,  and  national  bankruptcy. 
Those  who  long  for  these  blessings  here  will  find 
their  generating  principles  well  developed  and 
advocated  by  the  antagonist  of  the  Edinburgh 
Review.  Still  those  who  doubt  should  read  them; 
every  man's  reason  being  his  own  rightful  umpire. 
This  principle,  with  that  of  acquiescence  in  the  will 
of  the  majority,  will  preserve  us  free  and  prosperous 
as  long  as  they  are  sacredly  observed.  Accept  the 
assurances  of  my  respect. 


TO    ABRAHAM    SMALL. 

Monticello,  May  20,   1814. 

Sir,— I  thank  you  for  the  copy  of  the  American 
Speaker  which  you  have  been  so  kind  as  to  send  me. 
It  is  a  judicious  selection  of  what  has  been  excel- 
lently spoken  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic;  and 
according  to  your  request,  I  willingly  add  some 
suggestions,  should  another  edition  be  called  for. 
To  the  speeches  of  Lord  Chatham  might  be  added 


Correspondence  1 3  7 

his  reply  to  Horace  Walpole,  on  the  Seamen's  bill, 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  in  1 740,  one  of  the  severest 
which  history  has  recorded.  Indeed,  the  subsequent 
speeches  in  order,  to  which  that  reply  gave  rise,  being 
few,  short  and  pithy,  well  merit  insertion  in  such  a 
collection  as  this.  They  are  in  the  twelfth  volume 
of  Chandler's  Debates  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
But  the  finest  thing,  in  my  opinion,  which  the  Eng- 
lish language  has  produced,  is  the  defence  of  Eugene 
Aram,  spoken  by  himself  at  the  bar  of  the  York 
assizes,  in  1759,  on  a  charge  of  murder,  and  to  be 
found  in  the  Annual  .Register  of  that  date,  or  a 
little  after.  It  had  been  upwards  of  fifty  years 
since  I  had  read  it,  when  the  receipt  of  your  letter 
induced  me  to  look  up  a  MS.  copy  I  had  preserved, 
and  on  re-perusal  at  this  age  and  distance  of  time, 
it  loses  nothing  of  its  high  station  in  my  mind  for 
classical  style,  close  logic,  and  strong  representation. 
I  send  you  this  copy  which  was  taken  for  me  by  a 
school-boy,  replete  with  errors  of  punctuation,  of 
orthography,  and  sometimes  substitutions  of  one 
word  for  another.  It  would  be  better  to  recur  to 
the  Annual  Register  itself  for  correctness,  where 
also  I  think  are  stated  the  circumstances  and  issue 
of  the  case.  To  these  I  would  add  the  short,  the 
nervous,  the  unanswerable  speech  of  Carnot,  in 
1803,  on  the  proposition  to  declare  Bonaparte 
consul  for  life.  This  creed  of  republicanism  should 
be  well  translated,  and  placed  in  the  hands  and 
heart  of  every  friend  to  the  rights  of  self -govern- 


138  Jefferson's  Works 

ment.  I  consider  these  speeches  of  Aram  and 
Carnot,  and  that  of  Logan,  inserted  in  your  collec- 
tion, as  worthily  standing  in  a  line  with  those  of 
Scipio  and  Hannibal  in  Livy,  and  of  Cato  and 
Caesar  in  Sallust.  On  examining  the  Indian  speeches 
in  my  possession,  I  find  none  which  are  not  already 
in  your  collection,  except  that  my  copy  of  Corn- 
planter's  has  much  in  it  which  yours  has  not. 
But  observing  that  the  omissions  relate  to  special 
subjects  only,  I  presume  they  are  made  purposely 
and  indeed  properly. 

I  must  a.dd  more  particular  thanks  for  the  kind 
expressions  of  your  letter  towards  myself.  These 
testimonies  of  approbation  from  my  fellow  citizens, 
offered  too  when  the  lapse  of  time  may  have  cooled 
and  matured  their  opinions,  are  an  ample  reward 
for  such  services  as  I  have  been  able  to  render 
■them,  and  are  peculiarly  gratifying  in  a  state  of 
retirement  and  reflection.  I  pray  you  to  accept 
the  assurance  of  my  respect. 


TO    THOMAS    LAW,    ESQ. 

Poplar  Forest,  June  13,  18 14. 

Dear  Sir, — The  copy  of  your  Second  Thoughts 
on  Instinctive  Impulses,  with  the  letter  accompany- 
ing it,  was  received  just  as  I  was  setting  out  on  a 
journey  to  this  place,  two  or  three  days  distant 
from  Monticello.  I  brought  it  with  me  and  read 
it  with  great  satisfaction,  and  with  the  more  as  it 


Correspondence  1 39 

contained  exactly  my  own  creed  on  the  foundation 
of  morality  in  man.  It  is  really  curious  that  on  a 
question  so  fundamental,  such  a  variety  of  opinions 
should  have  prevailed  among  men,  and  those,  too, 
of  the  most  exemplary  virtue  and  first  order  of 
understanding.  It  shows  how  necessary  was  the 
care  of  the  Creator  in  making  the  moral  principle 
so  much  a  part  of  our  constitution  as  that  no  errors 
of  reasoning  or  of  speculation  might  lead  us  astray 
from  its  observance  in  practice.  Of  all  the  theories 
on  this  question,  the  most  whimsical  seems  to  have 
been  that  of  Wollaston,  who  considers  truth  as  the 
foundation  of  morality.  The  thief  who  steals  your 
guinea  does  wrong  only  inasmuch  as  he  acts  a  lie  in 
using  your  guinea  as  if  it  were  his  own.  Truth  is 
certainly  a  branch  of  morality,  and  a  very  important 
one  to  society.  But  presented  as  its  foundation,  it 
is  as  if  a  tree  taken  up  by  the  roots,  had  its  stem 
reversed  in  the  air,  and  one  of  its  branches  planted 
in  the  ground.  Some  have  made  the  love  of  God 
the  foundation  of  morality.  This,  too,  is  but  a 
branch  of  our  moral  duties,  which  are  generally 
divided  into  duties  to  God  and  duties  to  man.  If 
we  did  a  good  act  merely  from  the  love  of  God  and 
a  belief  that  it  is  pleasing  to  Him,  whence  arises 
the  morality  of  the  Atheist?  It  is  idle  to  say,  as 
some  do,  that  no  such  being  exists.  We  have  the 
same  evidence  of  the  fact  as  of  most  of  those  we 
act  on,  to  wit:  their  own  affirmations,  and  their 
reasonings  in  support  of  them.     I  have  observed, 


1 40  Jeff  ef son  's^Works 

indeed,  generally,  that  while  in  Protestant  countries 
the  defections  from  the  Platonic  Christianity  of 
the  priests  is  to  Deism,  in  Catholic  countries  they 
are  to  Atheism.  Diderot,  D'Alembert,  D'Holbach, 
Condor cet,  are  known  to  have  been  among  the  most 
virtuous  of  men.  Their  virtue,  then,  must  have 
had  some  other  foundation  than  the  love  of  God. 
The  To  kv\ov  of  others  is  founded  in  a  different 
faculty,  that  of  taste,  which  is  not  even  a  branch 
of  morality.  We  have  indeed  an  innate  sense  of 
what  we  call  beautiful,  but  that  is  exercised  chiefly 
on  subjects  addressed  to  the  fancy,  whether  through 
the  eye  in  visible  forms,  as  landscape,  animal  figure, 
dress,  drapery,  architecture,  the  composition  of 
colors,  etc.,  or  to  the  imagination  directly,  as  imagery, 
style,  or  measure  in  prose  or  poetry,  or  whatever 
else  constitutes  the  domain  of  criticism  or  taste,  a 
faculty  entirely  distinct  from  the  moral  one.  Self- 
interest,  or  rather  self-love,  or  egoism,  has  been 
more  plausibly  substituted  as  the  basis  of  morality. 
But  I  consider  our  relations  with  others  as  consti- 
tuting the  boundaries  of  morality.  With  ourselves 
we  stand  on  the  ground  of  identity,  not  of  relation, 
which  last,  requiring  two  subjects,  excludes  self- 
love  confined  to  a  single  one.  To  ourselves,  in 
strict  language,  we  can  owe  no  duties,  obligation 
requiring  also  two  parties.  Self-love,  therefore, 
is  no  part  of  morality.  Indeed  it  is  exactly  its 
counterpart.  It  is  the  sole  antagonist  of  virtue, 
leading  us  constantly  by  our  propensities  to  self- 


Correspondence  *4i 

gratification  in  violation  of  our  moral  duties  to 
others.  Accordingly,  it  is  against  this  enemy  that 
are  erected  the  batteries  of  moralists  and  religionists, 
as  the  only  obstacle  to  the  practice  of  morality. 
Take  from  man  his  selfish  propensities,  and  he  can 
have  nothing  to  seduce  him  from  the  practice  of 
virtue.  Or  subdue  those  propensities  by  education, 
instruction  or  restraint,  and  virtue  remains  without 
a  competitor.  Egoism,  in  a  broader  sense,  has 
been  thus  presented  as  the  source  of  moral  action. 
It  has  been  said  that  we  feed  the  hungry,  clothe 
the  naked,  bind  up  the  wounds  of  the  man  beaten 
by  thieves,  pour  oil  and  wine  into  them,  set  him  on 
our  own  beast  and  bring  him  to  the  inn,  because  we 
receive  ourselves  pleasure  from  these  acts.  So  Helve- 
tius,  one  of  the  best  men  on  earth,  and  the  most 
ingenious  advocate  of  this  principle,  after  defining 
'  'interest"  to  mean  not  merely  that  which  is  pecuni- 
ary, but  whatever  may  procure  us  pleasure  or  with- 
draw us  from  pain,  [de  V esprit  2,  1,]  says,  [ib.  2,  2,] 
"the  humane  man  is  he  to  whom  the  sight  of  mis- 
fortune is  insupportable,  and  who  to  rescue  himself 
from  this  spectacle,  is  forced  to  succor  the  unfortu- 
nate object."  This  indeed  is  true.  But  it  is  one 
step  short  of  the  ultimate  question.  These  good 
acts  give  us  pleasure,  but  how  happens  it  that  they 
give  us  pleasure?  Because  nature  hath  implanted 
in  our  breasts  a  love  of  others,  a  sense  of  duty  to 
them,  a  moral  instinct,  in  short,  which  prompts 
us  irresistibly  to  feel  and  to  succor  their  distresses, 


*4*  Jefferson's  Works 

and  protests  against  the  language  of  Helvetius, 
[ib.  2,  5,]  "what  other  motive  than  self-interest 
could  determine  a  man  to  generous  actions?  It  is 
as  impossible  for  him  to  love  what  is  good  for  the 
sake  of  good,  as  to  love  evil  for  the  sake  of  evil.'' 
The  Creator  would  indeed  have  been  a  bungling 
artist,  had  he  intended  man  for  a  social  animal, 
without  planting  in  him  social  dispositions.  It  is 
true  they  are  not  planted  in  every  man,  because 
there  is  no  rule  without  exceptions;  but  it  is  false 
reasoning  which  converts  exceptions  into  the  general 
rule.  Some  men  are  born  without  the  organs  of 
sight,  or  of  hearing,  or  without  hands.  Yet  it 
would  be  wrong  to  say  that  man  is  born  without 
these  faculties,  and  sight,  hearing,  and  hands  may 
with  truth  enter  into  the  general  definition  of  man. 
The  want  or  imperfection  of  the  moral  sense  in 
some  men,  like  the  want  or  imperfection  of  the 
senses  of  sight  and  hearing  in  others,  is  no  proof 
that  it  is  a  general  characteristic  of  the  species. 
When  it  is  wanting,  we  endeavor  to  supply  the 
defect  by  education,  by  appeals  to  reason  and  calcu- 
lation, by  presenting  to  the  being  so  unhappily 
conformed,  other  motives  to  do  good  and  to  eschew 
evil,  such  as  the  love,  or  the  hatred,  or  rejection 
of  those  among  whom  he  lives,  and  whose  society 
is  necessary  to  his  happiness  and  even  existence; 
demonstrations  by  sound  calculation  that  honesty 
promotes  interest  in  the  long  run;  the  rewards  and 
penalties  established  by  the  laws;    and  ultimately 


Correspondence  143 

the  prospects  of  a  future  state  of  retribution  for 
the  evil  as  well  as  the  good  done  while  here.  These 
are  the  correctives  which  are  supplied  by  education, 
and  which  exercise  the  functions  of  the  moralist, 
the  preacher,  and  legislator;  and  they  lead  into 
a  course  of  correct  action  all  those  whose  disparity 
is  not  too  profound  to  be  eradicated.  Some  have 
argued  against  the  existence  of  a  moral  sense,  by 
saying  that  if  nature  had  given  us  such  a  sense, 
impelling  us  to  virtuous  actions,  and  warning  us 
against  those  which  are  vicious,  then  nature  would 
also  have  designated,  by  some  particular  ear-marks, 
the  two  sets  of  actions  which  are,  in  themselves, 
the  one  virtuous  and  the  other  vicious.  Whereas, 
we  find,  in  fact,  that  the  same  actions  are  deemed 
virtuous  in  one  country  and  vicious  in  another. 
The  answer  is,  that  nature  has  constituted  utility 
to  man,  the  standard  and  test  of  virtue.  Men 
living  in  different  countries,  under  different  circum- 
stances, different  habits  and  regimens,  may  have 
different  utilities;  the  same  act,  therefore,  may 
be  useful,  and  consequently  virtuous  in  one  country 
which  is  injurious  and  vicious  in  another  differently 
circumstanced.  I  sincerely,  then,  believe  with  you 
in  the  general  existence  of  a  moral  instinct.  I 
think  it  the  brightest  gem  with  which  the  human 
character  is  studded,  and  the  want  of  it  as  more 
degrading  than  the  most  hideous  of  the  bodily 
deformities.  I  am  happy  in  reviewing  the  roll  of 
associates  in   this  principle   which   you  present  in 


H4  Jefferson's  Works 

your  second  letter,  some  of  which  I  had  not  before 
met  with.  To  these  might  be  added  Lord  Kaims, 
one  of  the  ablest  of  our  advocates,  who  goes  so  far 
as  to  say,  in  his  Principles  of  Natural  Religion, 
that  a  man  owes  no  duty  to  which  he  is  not  urged 
by  some  impulsive  feeling.  This  is  correct,  if 
referred  to  the  standard  of  general  feeling  in  the 
given  case,  and  not  to  the  feeling  of  a  single  indi- 
vidual. Perhaps  I  may  misquote  him,  it  being 
fifty  years  since  I  read  his  book. 

The  leisure  and  solitude  of  my  situation  here 
has  led  me  to  the  indiscretion  of  taxing  you  with 
a  long  letter  on  a  subject  whereon  nothing  new 
can  be  offered  you.  I  will  indulge  myself  no  farther 
than  to  repeat  the  assurances  of  my  continued 
esteem  and  respect. 


TO    JOHN    ADAMS. 

MONTICELLO,    July    5,    1814. 

Dear  Sir, — Since  mine  of  January  the  24th,  yours 
of  March  the  14th  has  been  received.  It  was  not 
acknowledged  in  the  short  one  of  May  the  18th, 
by  Mr.  Rives,  the  only  object  of  that  having  been 
to  enable  one  of  our  most  promising  young  men  to 
have  the  advantage  of  making  his  bow  to  you.  I 
learned  with  great  regret  the  serious  illness  men- 
tioned in  your  letter;  and  I  hope  Mr.  Rives  will 
be  able  to  tell  me  you  are  entirely  restored.  But  our 
machines  have  now  been  running  seventy  or  eighty 


Correspondence  145 

years,  and  we  must  expect  that,  worn  as  they  are, 
here  a  pivot,  there  a  wheel,  now  a  pinion,  next  a 
spring,  will  be  giving  way;  and  however  we  may 
tinker  them  up  for  a  while,  all  will  at  length  surcease 
motion.  Our  watches,  with  works  of  brass  and 
steel,  wear  out  within  that  period.  Shall  you  and 
I  last  to  see  the  course  the  seven-fold  wonders  of 
the  times  will  take  ?  The  Attila  of  the  age  dethroned, 
the  ruthless  destroyer  of  ten  millions  of  the  human 
race,  whose  thirst  for  blood  appeared  unquenchable, 
the  great  oppressor  of  the  rights  and  liberties  of 
the  world,  shut  up  within  the  circle  of  a  little  island 
of  the  Mediterranean,  and  dwindled  to  the  condition 
of  an  humble  and  degraded  pensioner  on  the  bounty 
of  those  he  had  most  injured.  How  miserably, 
how  meanly,  has  he  closed  his  inflated  career!  What 
a  sample  of  the  bathos  will  his  history  present!  He 
should  have  perished  on  the  swords  of  his  enemies, 
under  the  walls  of  Paris. 

"Leon  piagato  a  morte 
Sente  mancar  la  vita, 
Guarda  la  sua  fieri ta, 
Ne  s'avilisce  ancor. 
Cosi  fra  l'ire  estrema 
Rugge,  minaccia,  e  freme, 
Che  fa  tremar  morendo 
Tal  volta  il  cacciator." — Metast.  Adriano. 

But  Bonaparte  was  a  lion  in  the  field  only.     In 

civil  life,  a  cold-blooded,   calculating,  unprincipled 

•usurper,  without  a  virtue;    no  statesman,  knowing 

nothing  of  commerce,   political  economy,   or  civil 

VOL.   XIV 10 


146  Jefferson's  Works 

government,  and  supplying  ignorance  by  bold  pre- 
sumption. I  had  supposed  him  a  great  man  until 
his  entrance  into  the  Assembly  des  cinq  cens,  eighteen 
Brumaire  (an  8).  From  that  date,  however,  I  set 
him  down  as  a  great  scoundrel  only.  To  the 
wonders  of  his  rise  and  fall,  we  may  add  that  of  a 
Czar  of  Muscovy,  dictating,  in  Paris,  laws  and 
limits  to  all  the  successors  of  the  Caesars,  and  hold- 
ing even  the  balance  in  which  the  fortunes  of  this 
new  world  are  suspended.  I  own,  that  while  I 
rejoice,  for  the  good  of  mankind,  in  the  deliverance 
of  Europe  from  the  havoc  which  would  never  have 
ceased  while  Bonaparte  should  have  lived  in  power, 
I  see  with  anxiety  the  tyrant  of  the  ocean  remaining 
in  vigor,  and  even  participating  in  the  merit  of 
crushing  his  brother  tyrant.  While  the  world  is 
thus  turned  up  side  down,  on  which  of  its  sides  are 
we?  All  the  strong  reasons,  indeed,  place  us  on 
the  side  of  peace;  the  interests  of  the  continent, 
their  friendly  dispositions,  and  even  the  interests 
of  England.  Her  passions  alone  are  opposed  to  it. 
Peace  would  seem  now  to  be  an  easy  work,  the 
causes  of  the  war  being  removed.  Her  orders  of 
council  will  no  doubt  be  taken  care  of  by  the  allied 
powers,  and,  war  ceasing,  her  impressment  of  our 
seamen  ceases  of  course.  But  I  fear  there  is  founda- 
tion for  the  design  intimated  in  the  public  papers, 
of  demanding  a  cession  of  our  right  in  the  fisheries. 
What  will  Massachusetts  say  to  this?  I  mean  her 
majority,   which   must  be   considered   as   speaking 


Correspondence  1 4  7 

through  the  organs  it  has  appointed  itself,  as  the 
index  of  its  will.  She  chose  to  sacrifice  the  liberties 
of  our  seafaring  citizens,  in  which  we  were  all  inter- 
ested, and  with  them  her  obligations  to  the  co- 
States,  rather  than  war  with  England.  Will  she 
now  sacrifice  the  fisheries  to  the  same  partialities? 
This  question  is  interesting  to  her  alone;  for  to  the 
Middle,  the  Southern  and  Western  States,  they  are 
of  no  direct  concern;  of  no  more  than  the  culture 
of  tobacco,  rice  and  cotton,  to  Massachusetts.  I 
am  really  at  a  loss  to  conjecture  what  our  refractory 
sister  will  say  on  this  occasion.  I  know  what,  as 
a  citizen  of  the  Union,  I  would  say  to  her.  'Take 
this  question  ad  referendum.  It  concerns  you  alone. 
If  you  would  rather  give  up  the  fisheries  than  war 
with  England,  we  give  them  up.  If  you  had  rather 
fight  for  them,  we  will  defend  your  interests  to  the 
last  drop  of  our  blood,  choosing  rather  to  set  a 
good  example  than  follow  a  bad  one."  And  I 
hope  she  will  determine  to  fight  for  them.  With 
this,  however,  you  and  I  shall  have  nothing  to  do; 
ours  being  truly  the  case  wherein  "  non  tali  auxilio, 
nee  defensor ibus  istis  tempus  eget"  Quitting  this 
subject,  therefore,  I  will  turn  over  another  leaf. 

I  am  just  returned  from  one  of  my  long  absences, 
having  been  at  my  other  home  for  five  weeks  past. 
Having  more  leisure  there  than  here  for  reading, 
I  amused  myself  with  reading  seriously  Plato's 
Republic.  I  am  wrong,  however,  in  calling  it 
amusement,   for  it  was  the  heaviest  task- work   I 


*48  Jefferson's  Works 

ever  went  through.  I  had  occasionally  before 
taken  up  some  of  his  other  works,  but  scarcely 
ever  had  patience  to  go  through  a  whole  dialogue. 
While  wading  through  the  whimsies,  the  puerilities 
and  unintelligible  jargon  of  this  work,  I  laid  it  down 
often  to  ask  myself  how  it  could  have  been,  that  the 
world  should  have  so  long  consented  to  give  reputa- 
tion to  such  nonsense  as  this?  How  the  soi-disant 
Christian  world,  indeed,  should  have  done  it,  is  a 
piece  of  historical  curiosity.  But  how  could  the 
Roman  good  sense  do  it?  And  particularly, 
how  could  Cicero  bestow  such  eulogies  on  Plato? 
Although  Cicero  did  not  wield  the  dense  logic  of 
Demosthenes,  yet  he  was  able,  learned,  laborious, 
practised  in  the  business  of  the  world,  and  honest. 
He  could  not  be  the  dupe  of  mere  style,  of  which 
he  was  himself  the  first  master  in  the  world.  With 
the  moderns,  I  think,  it  is  rather  a  matter  of  fashion 
and  authority.  Education  is  chiefly  in  the  hands 
of  persons  who,  from  their  profession^  have  an 
interest  in  the  reputation  and  the  dreams  of  Plato. 
They  give  the  tone  while  at  school,  and  few  in 
their  after  years  have  occasion  to  revise  their  college 
opinions.  But  fashion  and  authority  apart,  and 
bringing  Plato  to  the  test  of  reason,  take  from 
him  his  sophisms,  futilities  and  incomprehensi- 
bilities, and  what  remains?  In  truth,  he  is  one 
of  the  race  of  genuine  sophists,  who  has  escaped 
the  oblivion  of  his  brethren,  first,  by  the  elegance 
of  his   diction,   but   chiefly,   by  the   adoption   and 


Correspondence  149 

incorporation  of  his  whimsies  into  the  body  of 
artificial  Christianity.  His  foggy  mind  is  forever 
presenting  the  semblances  of  objects  which,  half 
seen  through  a  mist,  can  be  defined  neither  in 
form  nor  dimensions.  Yet  this,  which  should  have 
consigned  him  to  early  oblivion,  really  procured 
him  immortality  of  fame  and  reverence.  The 
Christian  priesthood,  finding  the  doctrines  of  Christ 
levelled  to  every  understanding,  and  too  plain  to 
need  explanation,  saw  in  the  mysticism  of  Plato 
materials  with  which  they  might  build  up  an  arti- 
ficial system,  which  might,  from  its  indistinctness, 
admit  everlasting  controversy,  give  employment 
for  their  order,  and  introduce  it  to  profit,  power 
and  preeminence.  The  doctrines  which  flowed 
from  the  lips  of  Jesus  himself  are  within  the  com- 
prehension of  a  child;  but  thousands  of  volumes 
have  not  yet  explained  the  Platonisms  engrafted 
on  them ;  and  for  this  obvious  reason,  that  nonsense 
can  never  be  explained.  Their  purposes,  however, 
are  answered.  Plato  is  canonized;  and  it  is  now 
deemed  as  impious  to  question  his  merits  as  those 
of  an  Apostle  of  Jesus.  He  is  peculiarly  appealed 
to  as  an  advocate  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul; 
and  yet  I  will  venture  to  say,  that  were  there  no 
better  arguments  than  his  in  proof  of  it,  not  a  man 
in  the  world  would  believe  it.  It  is  fortunate  for 
us,  that  Platonic  republicanism  has  not  obtained 
the  same  favor  as  Platonic  Christianity ;  or  we 
should  now  have  been  all  living,  men,  women  and 


I5°  Jefferson's  Works 

children,  pell  mell  together,  like  beasts  of  the  field 
or  forest.  Yet  "Plato  is  a  great  philosopher,"  said 
La  Fontaine.  But,  says  Fontenelle,  "do  you  find 
his  ideas  very  clear?"  "  Oh  no!  he  is  of  an  obscurity 
impenetrable."  "Do  you  not  find  him  full  of  con- 
tradictions?" "Certainly,"  replied  La  Fontaine, 
"he  is  but  a  sophist."  Yet  immediately  after,  he 
exclaims  again,  "  Oh,  Plato  was  a  great  philosopher." 
Socrates  had  reason,  indeed,  to  complain  of  the 
misrepresentations  of  Plato;  for  in  truth,  his  dia- 
logues are  libels  on  Socrates. 

But  why  am  I  dosing  you  with  these  antediluvian 
topics?  Because  I  am  glad  to  have  some  one  to 
whom  they  are  familiar,  and  who  will  not  receive 
them  as  if  dropped  from  the  moon.  Our  post- 
revolutionary  youth  are  born  under  happier  stars 
than  you  and  I  were.  They  acquire  all  learning  in 
their  mother's  womb,  and  bring  it  into  the  world 
ready  made.  The  information  of  books  is  no  longer 
necessary;  and  all  knowledge  which  is  not  innate, 
is  in  contempt,  or  neglect  at  least.  Every  folly 
must  run  its  round;  and  so,  I  suppose,  must  that 
of  self -learning  and  self-sufficiency;  of  rejecting  the 
knowledge  acquired  in  past  ages,  and  starting  on 
the  new  ground  of  intuition.  When  sobered  by 
experience,  I  hope  our  successors  will  turn  their 
attention  to  the  advantages  of  education.  I  mean 
of  education  on  the  broad  scale,  and  not  that  of 
the  petty  academies,  as  they  call  themselves,  which 
are  starting  up  in  every  neighborhood,  and  where 


Correspondence  1 5 x 

one  or  two  men,  possessing  Latin  and  sometimes 
Greek,  a  knowledge  of  the  globes,  and  the  first  six 
books  of  Euclid,  imagine  and  communicate  this 
as  the  sum  of  science.  They  commit  their  pupils 
to  the  theatre  of  the  world,  with  just  taste  enough 
of  learning  to  be  alienated  from  industrious  pursuits, 
and  not  enough  to  do  service  in  the  ranks  of  science. 
We  have  some  exceptions,  indeed.  I  presented 
one  to  you  lately,  and  we  have  some  others.  But 
the  terms  I  use  are  general  truths.  I  hope  the 
necessity  will,  at  length,  be  seen  of  establishing 
institutions  here,  as  in  Europe,  where  every  branch 
of  science,  useful  at  this  day,  may  be  taught  in  its 
highest  degree.  Have  you  ever  turned  your  thoughts 
to  the  plan  of  such  an  institution?  I  mean  to  a 
specification  of  the  particular  sciences  of  real  use 
in  human  affairs,  and  how  they  might  be  so  grouped 
as  to  require  so  many  professors  only  as  might  bring 
them  within  the  views  of  a  just  but  enlightened 
economy?  I  should  be  happy  in  a  communication 
of  your  ideas  on  this  problem,  either  loose  or  digested. 
But  to  avoid  my  being  run  away  with  by  another 
subject,  and  adding  to  the  length  and  ennui  of  the 
present  letter,  I  will  here  present  to  Mrs.  Adams 
and  yourself,  the  assurance  of  my  constant  and 
sincere  friendship  and  respect. 


?52  Jefferson's  Works 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  July  16,   1814. 

Dear  Sir, — I  received  this  morning  your  favor 
of  the  5  th,  and  as  I  can  never  let  a  sheet  of  yours 
rest,  I  sit  down  immediately  to  acknowledge  it. 

Whenever  Mr.  Rives,  of  whom  I  have  heard 
nothing,  shall  arrive,  he  shall  receive  all  the  cordial 
civilities  in  my  power. 

I  am  sometimes  afraid  that  my  "  machine"  will 
not  " surcease  motion"  soon  enough;  for  I  dread 
nothing  so  much  as  "  dying  at  top,"  and  expiring 
like  Dean  Swift,  "a  driveler  and  a  show;"  or  like 
Sam  Adams,  a  grief  and  distress  to  his  family,  a 
weeping  helpless  object  of  compassion  for  years. 

I  am  bold  to  say,  that  neither  you  nor  I  will  live 
to  see  the  course  which  the  "  wonders  of  the  times" 
will  take.  Many  years,  and  perhaps  centuries  must 
pass,  before  the  current  will  acquire  a  settled  direc- 
tion. If  the  Christian  religion,  as  I  understand  it, 
or  as  you  understand  it,  should  maintain  its  ground, 
as  I  believe  it  will,  yet  Platonic,  Pythagonic,  Hindoo, 
Cabalistical  Christianity,  which  is  Catholic  Christi- 
anity, and  which  has  prevailed  for  1,500  years,  has 
received  a  mortal  wound  of  which  the  monster 
must  finally  die;  yet  so  strong  is  his  constitution, 
that  he  may  endure  for  centuries  before  he  expires. 

Government  has  never  been  much  studied  by 
mankind,  but  their  attention  has  been  drawn  to 
it  in  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century,  and  the 


Correspondence  153 

beginning  of  this,  more  than  at  any  former  period; 
and  the  vast  variety  of  experiments  that  have  been 
made  of  constitutions  in  America,  in  France,  in 
Holland,  in  Geneva,  in  Switzerland,  and  even  in 
Spain  and  South  America,  can  never  be  forgotten. 
They  will  be  catastrophes  noted.  The  result,  in 
time,  will  be  improvements;  and  I  have  no  doubt 
that  the  horrors  we  have  experienced  for  the  last 
forty  years,  will  ultimately  terminate  in  the  advance- 
ment of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  and  ameliorations 
in  the  condition  of  mankind;  for  I  am  a  believer 
in  the  probable  unprovability  and  improvement, 
the  ameliorability  and  amelioration  in  human  affairs ; 
though  I  never  could  understand  the  doctrine  of 
the  perfectibility  of  the  human  mind.  This  has 
always  appeared  to  me  like  the  philosophy,  or  the- 
ology of  the  Gentoos,  viz.,  that  a  Brahman,  by 
certain  studies,  for  a  certain  time  pursued,  and  by 
certain  ceremonies,  a  certain  number  of  times  re- 
peated, becomes  omniscient  and  almighty. 

Our  hopes,  however,  of  sudden  tranquillity,  ought 
not  to  be  too  sanguine.  Fanaticism  and  super- 
stition will  still  be  selfish,  subtle,  intriguing,  and 
at  times  furious.  Despotism  will  still  struggle  for 
domination;  monarchy  will  still  study  to  rival 
nobility  in  popularity;  aristocracy  will  continue 
to  envy  all  above  it,  and  despise  and  pppress  all 
below  it;  democracy  will  envy  all,  contend  with  all, 
endeavor  to  pull  down  all;  and  when  by  chance  it 
happens  to  get  the  upper  hand  for  a  short  time,  it 


i54  Jefferson's  Works 

> 

will  be  revengeful,  bloody,  and  cruel.  These  and 
other  elements  of  fanaticism  and  anarchy,  will  yet, 
for  a  long  time,  continue  a  fermentation,  which  will 
excite  alarms  and  require  vigilance. 

Napoleon  is  a  military  fanatic  like  Achilles,  Alex- 
ander, Caesar,  Mahomet,  Zingis,  Kouli,  Charles  XII., 
etc.  The  maxim  and  principle  of  all  of  them  was 
the  same:  "  Jura  negat  sibi  lata,  nihil  non  arrogat 
armis." 

But  is  it  strict  to  call  him  an  usurper?  Was  not 
his  elevation  to  the  empire  of  France  as  legitimate 
and  authentic  a  national  act  as  that  of  William  the 
III.,  or  the  House  of  Hanover  to  the  throne  of  the 
three  kingdoms?  or  as  the  election  of  Washington 
to  the  command  of  our  army,  or  to  the  chair  of 
the  States? 

Human  nature,  in  no  form  of  it,  ever  could  bear 
prosperity.  That  peculiar  tribe  of  men  called 
conquerors,  more  remarkably  than  any  other,  have 
been  swelled  with  vanity  by  any  series  of  victories. 

Napoleon  won  so  many  mighty  battles  in  such 
quick  succession,  and  for  so  long  a  time,  that  it  was 
no  wonder  his  brain  became  completely  intoxicated, 
and  his  enterprises  rash,  extravagant,  and  mad. 

Though  France  is  humbled,  Britain  is  not.  Though 
Bonaparte  is  banished,  a  greater  tyrant  and  miser 
usurper  still  domineers.  John  Bull  is  quite  as 
unfeeling,  as  unprincipled,  more  powerful,  has  shed 
more  blood,  than  Bonaparte.  John,  by  his  money, 
his  intrigues,  and  arms,  by  exciting  coalition  after 


Correspondence  1 55 

coalition  against  him,  made  him  what  he  was,  and, 
at  last,  what  he  is.  How  shall  the  tyrant  of  tyrants 
be  brought  low?  Aye!  there's  the  rub!  I  still 
think  Bonaparte  great,  at  least  as  any  of  the  con- 
querors. The  wonders  "of  his  rise  and  fall,"  may 
be  seen  in  the  life  of  King  Theodore,  or  Pascal  Paoli, 
or  Mazionetti,  or  Jack  Cade,  or  Wat  Tyler,  or 
Rienzi,  or  Dionicus.  The  only  difference  is  that 
between  miniatures  and  full-length  pictures.  The 
schoolmaster  at  Corinth  was  a  greater  man  than 
the  tyrant  of  Syracuse,  upon  the  principle  that  he 
who  conquers  himself  is  greater  than  he  who  takes 
a  city.  Though  the  ferocious  roar  of  the  wounded 
lion  may  terrify  the  hunter  with  the  possibility  of 
another  dangerous  leap,  Bonaparte  was  shot  dead 
at  once  by  France.  He  could  no  longer  roar  or 
struggle,  growl  or  paw;  he  could  only  gasp  the 
death.  I  wish  that  France  may  not  still  regret 
him.  But  these  are  speculations  in  the  clouds.  I 
agree  with  you  that  the  milk  of  human  kindness 
in  the  Bourbons,  is  safer  for  mankind  than  the 
fierce  ambition  of  Napoleon. 

The  Autocrator  appears  in  an  imposing  light. 
Fifty  years  ago,  English  writers  held  up  terrible 
consequences  from  "thawing  out  the  monstrous 
northern  snake."  If  Cossacks,  and  Tartars,  and 
Goths,  and  Vandals,  and  Huns,  and  Riparians, 
should  get  a  taste  of  European  sweets,  what  may 
happen?  Could  Wellingtons  or  Bonapartes  resist 
them? 


J56  Jefferson's  Works 

The  greatest  trait  of  sagacity  that  Alexander  has 
yet  exhibited  to  the  world,  is.  his  courtship  of  the 
United  States.  But  whether  this  is  a  mature, 
well-digested  policy,  or  only  a  transient  gleam  of 
thought,  still  remains  to  be  explained  and  proved 
by  time. 

The  refractory  sister  will  not  give  up  the  fisheries. 
Not  a  man  here  dares  to  hint  at  so  base  a  thought. 

I  am  very  glad  you  have  seriously  read  Plato; 
and  still  more  rejoiced  to  find  that  your  reflections 
upon  him  so  perfectly  harmonize  with  mine.  Some 
thirty  years  ago  I  took  upon  me  the  severe  task  of 
going  through  all  his  works.  With  the  help  of  two 
Latin  translations,  and  one  English  and  one  French 
translation,  and  comparing  some  of  the  most  remark- 
able passages  with  the  Greek,  I  labored  through 
the  tedious  toil.  My  disappointment  was  very 
great,  my  astonishment  was  greater,  and  my  disgust 
shocking.  Two  things  only  did  I  learn  from  him. 
i.  That  Franklin's  ideas  of  exempting  husbandmen, 
and  mariners,  etc.,  from  the  depredations  of  war, 
was  borrowed  from  him.  2.  That  sneezing  is  a 
cure  for  the  hickups.  Accordingly,  I  have  cured 
myself,  and  all  my  friends,  of  that  provoking  disorder, 
for  thirty  years,  with  a  pinch  of  snuff. 

Some  parts  of  some  of  his  dialogues  are  entertain- 
ing like  the  writings  of  Rousseau,  but  his  Laws  and 
his  Republic,  from  which  I  expected  most,  disap- 
pointed me  most. 

I  could  scarcely  exclude  the  suspicion  that  he 


Correspondence  15  7 

intended  the  latter  as  a  bitter  satire  upon  all  republi- 
can government,  as  Xenophon  undoubtedly  designed, 
by  his  essay  on  democracy,  to  ridicule  that  species 
of  republic.  In  a  letter  to  the  learned  and  ingenious 
Mr.  Taylor,  of  Hazlewood,  I  suggested  to  him  the 
project  of  writing  a  novel,  in  which  the  hero  should 
be  sent  upon  his  travels  through  Plato's  republic, 
and  all  his  adventures,  with  his  observations  on 
the  principles  and  opinions,  the  arts  and  sciences, 
the  manners,  customs,  and  habits  of  the  citizens, 
should  be  recorded.  Nothing  can  be  conceived 
more  destructive  of  human  happiness;  more  infalli- 
bly contrived  to  transform  men  and  women  into 
brutes,  Yahoos,  or  demons,  than  a  community  of 
wives  and  property.  Yet  in  what  are  the  writings 
of  Rousseau  and  Helvetius,  wiser  than  those  of 
Plato?  The  man  who  first  fenced  a  tobacco  yard, 
and  said  this  is  mine,  ought  instantly  to  have  been 
put  to  death,  says  Rousseau.  The  man  who  first 
pronounced  the  barbarous  word  Dieu,  ought  to  have 
been  immediately  destroyed,  says  Diderot.  In 
short,  philosophers,  ancient  and  modern,  appear 
to  me  as  mad  as  Hindoos,  Mahometans,  and 
Christians.  No  doubt  they  would  all  think  me 
mad,  and,  for  anything  I  know,  this  globe  may  be 
the  Bedlam,  Le  Bicatre  of  the  universe.  After  all, 
as  long  as  property  exists,  it  will  accumulate  in 
individuals  and  families.  As  long  as  marriage 
exists,  knowledge,  property,  and  influence  will 
accumulate  in  families,    Your  and  our  equal  par- 


1 5 8  Jefferson's  Works 

tition  of  intestate  estates,  instead  of  preventing, 
will,  in  time,  augment  the  evil,  if  it  is  one. 

The  French  revolutionists  saw  this,  and  were  so 
far  consistent.  When  they  burned  pedigrees  and 
genealogical  trees,  they  annihilated,  as  far  as  they 
could,  marriages,  knowing  that  marriage,  among 
a  thousand  other  things,  was  an  infallible  source 
of  aristocracy.  I  repeat  it,  so  sure  as  the  idea  and 
existence  of  property  is  admitted  and  established 
in  society,  accumulations  of  it  will  be  made;  the 
snow-ball  will  grow  as  it  rolls. 

Cicero  was  educated  in  the  Groves  of  Academus, 
where  the  name  and  memory  of  Plato  were  idolized 
to  such  a  degree,  that  if  he  had  wholly  renounced 
the  prejudices  of  his  education,  his  reputation 
would  have  been  lessened,  if  not  injured  and  ruined. 
In  his  two  volumes  of  Discourses  on  Government,  we 
may  presume  that  he  fully  examined  Plato's  laws  and 
republic,  as  well  as  Aristotle's  writings  on  govern- 
ment. But  these  have  been  carefully  destroyed,  not 
improbably  with  the  general  consent  of  philosophers, 
politicians  and  priests.  The  loss  is  as  much  to  be 
regretted  as  that  of  any  production  of  antiquity. 

Nothing  seizes  the  attention  of  the  staring  animal 
so  surely  as  paradox,  riddle,  mystery,  invention, 
discovery,  wonder,  temerity.  Plato  and  his  dis- 
ciples, from  the  fourth-century  Christians  to  Rous- 
seau and  Tom  Paine,  have  been  fully  sensible  of 
this  weakness  in  mankind,  and  have  too  successfully 
grounded  upon  it  their  pretensions  to  fame. 


Correspondence  159 

I  might,  indeed,  have  mentioned  Bolingbroke, 
Hume,  Gibbon,  Voltaire,  Turgot,  Helvetius,  Diderot, 
Condorcet,  Buflfon,  and  fifty  others,  all  a  little 
cracked.  Be  to  their  faults  a  little  blind,  to  their 
virtues  ever  kind. 

Education!  Oh  Education!  The  greatest  grief 
of  my  heart,  and  the  greatest  affliction  of  my  life! 
To  my  mortification  I  must  confess  that  I  have 
never  closely  thought,  or  very  deliberately  reflected 
upon  the  subject  which  never  occurs  to  me  now 
without  producing  a  deep  sigh,  a  heavy  groan,  and 
sometimes  tears. 

My  cruel  destiny  separated  me  from  my  children, 
almost  continually  from  their  birth  to  their  man- 
hood. I  was  compelled  to  leave  them  to  the  ordi- 
nary routine  of  reading,  writing  and  Latin  school, 
academy  and  college.  John,  alone,  was  much  with 
me,  and  he  but  occasionally.  If  I  venture  to  give 
you  any  thoughts  at  all,  they  must  be  very  crude. 
I  have  turned  over  Locke,  Milton,  Condillac,  Rous- 
seau, and  even  Miss  Edgeworth,  as  a  bird  flies 
through  the  air.  The  Preceptor  I  have  thought  a 
good  book. 

Grammar,  rhetoric,  logic,  ethics,  mathematics, 
cannot  be  neglected.  Classics,  in  spite  of  our  friend 
Rush,  I  must  think  indispensable.  Natural  history, 
mechanics  and  experimental  philosophy,  chemistry, 
etc.,  at  least  their  rudiments,  cannot  be  forgotten. 
Geography,  astronomy,  and  even  history  and  chro- 
nology, (although  I  am  myself  afflicted  with  a  kind 


160  Jefferson's  Works 

of  Pyrrhonism  in  the  two  latter,)  I  presume  cannot 
be  omitted.  Theology  I  would  leave  to  Ray, 
Derham,  Nicuentent,  and  Paley,  rather  than  to 
Luther,  Zinzindorf,  Swedenborg,  Wesley  or  White- 
field,  or  Thomas  Aquinas  or  Wollebius.  Meta- 
physics I  would  leave  in  the  clouds  with  the  material- 
ists and  spiritualists,  with  Leibnitz,  Berkley,  Priest- 
ley and  Edwards,  and  I  might  add  Hume  and 
Reed,  or  if  permitted  to  be  read,  it  should  be  with 
romances  and  novels.  What  shall  I  say  of  music, 
drawing,  fencing,  dancing  and  gymnastic  exercises? 
What  of  languages,  oriental  and  occidental?  Of 
French,  Italian,  German  or  Russian?  of  Sanscrit  or 
Chinese  ? 

The  task  you  have  prescribed  to  me  of  grouping 
these  sciences  or  arts  under  professors,  within  the 
views  of  an  enlightened  economy,  is  far  beyond  my 
forces.  Loose  indeed,  and  indigested,  must  be  all 
the  hints  I  can  note.  Might  grammar,  rhetoric, 
logic,  and  ethics,  be  under  one  professor?  Might 
mathematics,  mechanics,  natural  philosophy,  be 
under  another?  Geography  and  astronomy  under 
a  third?  Laws  and  government,  history  and  chro- 
nology, under  a  fourth?  Classics  might  require 
a  fifth. 

Condillac's  Course  of  Study  has  excellent  parts. 
Among  many  systems  of  mathematics,  English, 
French  and  American,  there  is  none  preferable  to 
Besout's  Course.  La  Harpe's  Course  of  Literature 
is  very  valuable. 


Correspondence  161 

But  I  am  ashamed  to  add  any  more  to  the  broken 
innuendos,  except  assurances  of  my  continued 
friendship. 


TO  THE  BARON  DE  MOLL,  PRIVY  COUNSELLOR  OF  HIS 
MAJESTY  THE  KING  OF  BAVARIA,  SECRETARY  OF 
THE  ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES  FOR  THE  CLASS  OF 
MATHEMATICAL  AND  PHYSICAL  SCIENCES,  AND  OF 
THE  AGRONOMIC   SOCIETY  OF   BAVARIA,  AT  MUNICH. 

MONTICELLO,    July    31,    1814. 

Sir, — Within  a  few  days  only,  I  have  received 
the  letter  which  you  did  me  the  honor  to  write  on 
the  2  2d  of  July,  1812;  a  delay  which  I  presume 
must  be  ascribed  to  the  interruption  of  the  inter- 
course of  the  world  by  the  wars  which  have  lately 
desolated  it  by  sea  and  land.  Still  involved  our- 
selves with  a  nation  possessing  almost  exclusively 
the  ocean  which  separates  us,  I  fear  the  one  I  have 
now  the  honor  of  addressing  you  may  experience 
equal  delay.  I  receive  with  much  gratification  the 
diploma  of  the  Agronomic  Society  of  Bavaria,  con- 
ferring on  me  the  distinction  of  being  honorary 
member  of  their  society.  For  this  mark  of  their 
good  will,  I  pray  you  to  be  the  channel  of  communi- 
cating to  them  my  respectful  thanks.  Age  and 
distance  will  add  their  obstacles  to  the  services  I 
shall  ardently  wish  to  render  the  society.  Yet 
sincerely  devoted  to  this  art,  the  basis  of  the  sub- 
sistence, the  comforts  and  the  happiness  of  man, 

VOL.  XIV — II 


I(52  Jefferson's  Works 

and  sensible  of  the  general  interest  which  all  nations 
have  in  communicating  freely  to  each  other  dis- 
coveries of  new  and  useful  processes  and  implements 
in  it,  I  shall  with  zeal  at  all  times  meet  the  wishes 
of  the  society,  and  especially  rejoice  in  every  oppor- 
tunity which  their  commands  may  present  of  being 
useful  to  them.  With  the  homage  of  my  respects 
to  them,  be  pleased  to  accept  for  yourself  the 
assurances  of  my  particular  and  high  consideration. 


TO    WILLIAM    WIRT. 
MONTICELLO,    AugUSt    14,    1814. 

Dear  Sir, — I  have  been  laying  under  contribu- 
tion my  memory,  my  private  papers,  the  printed 
records,  gazettes  and  pamphlets  in  my  possession, 
to  answer  the  inquiries  of  your  letter  of  July  27, 
and  I  will  give  you  the  result  as  correctly  as  I  can. 
I  kept  no  copy  of  the  paper  I  sent  you  on  a  former 
occasion  on  the  same  subject,  nor  do  I  retain  an 
exact  recollection  of  its  contents.  But  if  in  that  I 
stated  the  question  on  the  loan  office  to  have  been 
in  1762,  I  did  it  with  too  slight  attention  to  the 
date,  although  not  to  the  fact.  I  have  examined 
the  journals  of  the  House  of  Burgesses,  of  1 760-1-2, 
in  my  possession,  and  find  no  trace  of  the  proceed- 
ing in  them.  By  those  of  1764,  I  find  that  the 
famous  address  to  the  king,  and  memorials  to  the 
Houses  of  Lords  and  Commons,  on  the  proposal 
of  the  Stamp  Act,  were  of  that  date;  and  I  know 


Correspondence  163 

that  Mr.  Henry  was  not  a  member  of  the  legislature 
when  they  were  passed.  I  know  also,  because  I 
was  present,  that  Robinson,  (who  died  in  May, 
1766,)  was  in  the  chair  on  the  question  of  the  loan 
office.  Mr.  Henry,  then,  must  have  come  in  between 
these  two  epochs,  and  consequently  in  1765.  Of  this 
year  I  have  no  journals  to  refresh  my  memory. 
The  first  session  was  in  May,  and  his  first  remarkable 
exhibition  there  was  on  the  motion  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  office  for  lending  money  on  mortgages 
of  real  property.  I  find  in  Royle's  Virginia  Gazette, 
of  the  17th  of  that  month,  this  proposition  for  the 
loan  office  brought  forward,  its  advantages  detailed, 
and  the  plan  explained;  and  it  seems  to  have  been 
done  by  a  borrowing  member,  from  the  feeling  with 
which  the  motives  are  expressed;  and  to  have  been 
preparatory  to  the  intended  motion.  This  was 
probably  made  immediately  after  that  date,  and 
certainly  before  the  30th,  which  was  the  date  of 
Mr.  Henry's  famous  resolutions.  I  had  been  inti- 
mate with  Mr.  Henry  since  the  winter  of  1759-60, 
and  felt  an  interest  in  what  concerned  him,  and  I  can 
never  forget  a  particular  exclamation  of  his  in  the 
debate  in  which  he  electrified  his  hearers.  It  had  been 
urged  that  from  certain  unhappy  circumstances  of  the 
colony,  men  of  substantial  property  had  contracted 
debts,  which,  if  exacted  suddenly,  must  ruin  them 
and  their  families,  but,  with  a  little  indulgence  of 
time,  might  be  paid  with  ease.  "What,  Sir!" 
exclaimed   Mr,    Henry,   in   animadverting  on   this, 


t64  Jefferson's  Works 

"is  it  proposed  then  to  reclaim  the  spendthrift 
from  his  dissipation  and  extravagance,  by  filling 
his  pockets  with  money!"  These  expressions  are 
indelibly  impressed  on  my  memory.  He  laid  open 
with  so  much  energy  the  spirit  of  favoritism  on 
which  the  proposition  was  founded,  and  the  abuses 
to  which  it  would  lead,  that  it  was  crushed  in  its 
birth.  Abortive  motions  are  not  always  entered 
on  the  journals,  or  rather,  they  are  rarely  entered. 
It  is  the  modern  introduction  of  yeas  and  nays 
which  has  given  the  means  of  placing  a  rejected 
motion  on  the  journals;  and  it  is  likely  that  the 
speaker,  who,  as  treasurer,  was  to  be  the  loan  officer, 
and  had  the  direction  of  the  journals,  would  choose 
to  omit  an  entry  of  the  motion  in  this  case.  This 
accounts  sufficiently  for  the  absence  of  any  trace 
of  the  motion  in  the  journals.  There  was  no  sus- 
picion then,  (as  far,  at  least,  as  I  know,)  that  Robin- 
son had  used  the  public  money  in  private  loans  to 
his  friends,  and  that  the  secret  object  of  this  scheme 
was  to  transfer  those  debtors  to  the  public,  and 
thus  clear  his  accounts.  I  have  diligently  examined 
the  names  of  the  members  on  the  journals  of  1764, 
to  see  if  any  were  still  living  to  whose  memory  we 
might  recur  on  this  subject,  but  I  find  not  a  single 
one  now  remaining  in  life. 

Of  the  parson's  cause  I  remember  nothing  remark- 
able. I  was  at  school  with  Mr.  Maury  during  the 
years  1758  and  1759,  and  often  heard  them  inveigh 
against  the  iniquity  of  the  act  of  1758,  called  the 


Correspondence  165 

two-penny  act.  In  1763,  when  that  cause  was 
decided  in  Hanover,  I  was  a  law-student  in  Williams- 
burg, and  remember  only  that  it  was  a  subject  of 
much  conversation,  and  of  great  paper-controversy, 
in  which  Camm,  and  Colonel  Bland,  were  the  prin- 
cipal champions. 

The  disputed  election  in  which  Mr.  Henry  made 
himself  remarkable,  must  have  been  that  of  Dan- 
dridge  and  Littlepage,  in  1764,  of  which,  however, 
I  recollect  no  particulars,  although  I  was  still  a 
student  in  Williamsburg,  and  paid  attention  to 
what  was  passing  in  the  legislature. 

I  proceed  now  to  the  resolution  of  1765.  The 
copies  you  enclose  me,  and  that  inserted  by  Judge 
Marshall  in  his  history,  and  copied  verbatim  by 
Burke,  are  really  embarrassing  by  their  differences. 
1.  That  of  the  four  resolutions  taken  from  the 
records  of  the  House,  is  the  genuine  copy  of  what 
they  passed,  as  amended  by  themselves,  cannot  be 
doubted.  2.  That  the  copy  which  Mr.  Henry  left 
sealed  up,  is  a  true  copy  of  these  four  resolutions, 
as  reported  by  the  committee,  there  is  no  reason  to 
doubt.  3.  That  Judge  Marshall's  version  of  three  of 
these  resolutions,  (for  he  has  omitted  one  altogether,) 
is  from  an  unauthentic  source  is  sufficiently  proved 
by  their  great  variation  from  the  record  in  diction, 
although  equivalent  in  sentiment.  But  what  are  we 
to  say  of  Mr.  Henry's  fifth,  and  Mr.  Marshall's  two 
last,  which  we  may  call  the  sixth  and  seventh  reso- 
lutions ?     The  fifth  has  clearly  nothing  to  justify  the 


1 66  Jefferson's  Works 

debate  and  proceedings  which  one  of  them  produced. 
But  the  sixth  is  of  that  character,  and  perfectly 
tallies  with  the  idea  impressed  on  my  mind,  of  that 
which  was  expunged.  Judge  Marshall  tells  us  that 
two  were  disagreed  to  by  the  House,  which  may  be 
true.  I  do  not  indeed  recollect  it,  but  I  have  no 
recollection  to  the  contrary.  My  hypothesis,  then, 
is  this,  that  the  two  disagreed  to  were  the  fifth  and 
seventh.  The  fifth,  because  merely  tautologous  of 
the  third  and  fourth,  and  the  seventh,  because 
leading  to  individual  persecution,  for  which  no  mind 
was  then  prepared.  And  that  the  sixth  was  the  one 
passed  by  the  House,  by  a  majority  of  a  single  vote, 
and  expunged  from  the  journals  the  next  day.  I 
was  standing  at  the  door  of  communication  between 
the  House  and  lobby  during  the  debates  and  vote, 
and  well  remember,  that  after  the  numbers  on  the 
division  were  told,  and  declared  from  the  chair, 
Peyton  Randolph  (then  Attorney  General)  came  out 
at  the  door  where  I  was  standing,  and  exclaimed, 
"  By  God,  I  would  have  given  one  hundred  guineas 
for  a  single  vote ! ' '  For  one  vote  would  have  divided 
the  House,  and  Robinson  was  in  the  chair,  who  he 
knew  would  have  negatived  the  resolution.  Mr. 
Henry  left  town  that  evening,  or  the  next  morning; 
and  Colonel  Peter  Randolph,  then  a  member  of  the 
Council,  came  to  the  House  of  Burgesses  about  ten 
o'clock  of  the  forenoon,  and  sat  at  the  clerk's  table 
till  the  House-bell  rang,  thumbing  over  the  volumes 
of  journals  to  find  a  precedent  of  expunging  a  vote 


Correspondence  167 

of  the  House,  which  he  said  had  taken  place  while 
he  was  a  member  or  clerk  of  the  House.  I  do  not 
recollect  which.  I  stood  by  him  at  the  end  of  the 
table  a  considerable  part  of  the  time,  looking  on  as 
he  turned  over  the  leaves,  but  I  do  not  recollect 
whether  he  found  the  erasure.  In  the  meantime, 
some  of  the  timid  members,  who  had  voted  for  the 
strongest  resolution,  had  become  alarmed,  and  as 
soon  as  the  House  met,  a  motion  was  made,  and 
carried,  to  expunge  it  from  the  journals.  And  here 
I  will  observe,  that  Burke's  statement  with  his 
opponents,  is  entirely  erroneous.  I  suppose  the 
original  journal  was  among  those  destroyed  by  the 
British,  or  its  obliterated  face  might  be  appealed  to. 
It  is  a  pity  this  investigation  was  not  made  a  few 
years  sooner,  when  some  of  the  members  of  the  day 
were  still  living.  I  think  inquiry  should  be  made  of 
Judge  Marshall  for  the  source  from  which  he  derived 
his  copy  of  the  resolutions.  This  might  throw  light 
on  the  sixth  and  seventh,  which  I  verily  believe,  and 
especially  the  sixth,  to  be  genuine  in  substance.  On 
the  whole,  I  suppose  the  four  resolutions  which  are 
on  the  record,  were  passed  and  retained  by  the 
House;  that  the  sixth  is  that  which  was  passed  by 
a  single  vote  and  expunged,  and  the  fifth  and  seventh, 
the  two  which  Judge  Marshall  says  were  disagreed  to. 
That  Mr.  Henry's  copy,  then,  should  not  have  stated 
all  this,  is  the  remaining  difficulty.  This  copy  he 
probably  sealed  up  long  after  the  transaction,  for 
it  was  long  afterwards  that  these  resolutions,  instead 


168  Jefferson's  Works 

of  the  address  and  memorials  of  the  preceding  year, 
were  looked  back  to  as  the  commencement  of  legis- 
lative opposition.     His  own  judgment  may,   at  a 
later  date,  have  approved  of  the  rejection  of  the 
sixth  and  seventh,  although  not  of  the  fifth,  and  he 
may  have  left  and  sealed  up  a  copy,  in  his  own 
handwriting,  as  approved  by  his  ultimate  judgment. 
This,  to  be  sure,  is  conjecture,  and  may  rightfully 
be  rejected  by  any  one  to  whom  a  more  plausible 
solution   may   occur;     and  there   I   must  leave  it. 
The  address  of  1764  was  drawn  by  Peyton  Randolph. 
Who   drew  the  memorial  to   the   Lords   I   do   not 
recollect,  but  Mr.  Wythe  drew  that  to  the  Commons. 
It  was  done  with  so  much  freedom,  that,  as  he  has 
told  me  himself,   his  colleagues  of  the  committee 
shrank  from  it  as  bearing  the  aspect  of  treason,  and 
smoothed  its  features  to  its  present  form.     He  was, 
indeed,  one  of  the  very  few,  (for  I  can  barely  speak 
of  them  in  the  plural  number,)  of  either  character, 
who,  from  the  commencement  of  the  contest,  hung 
our  connection  with  Great  Britain  on  its  true  hook, 
that  of  a  common  king.     His  unassuming  character, 
however,  made  him  appear  as  a  follower,  while  his 
sound  judgment  kept  him  in  a  line  with  the  freest 
spirit.     By  these  resolutions,   Mr.   Henry  took  the 
lead  out  of  the  hands  of  those  who  had  heretofore 
guided  the  proceedings  of  the  House,  that  is  to  say, 
of  Pendleton,  Wythe,   Bland,  Randolph,   Nicholas. 
These  were  honest  and  able  men,  had  begun  the 
opposition  on  the  same  grounds,  but  with  a  moder- 


Correspondence  1 69 

ation  more  adapted  to  their  age  and  experience. 
Subsequent  events  favored  the  bolder  spirits  of 
Henry,  the  Lees,  Pages,  Mason,  etc.,  with  whom  I 
went  in  all  points.  Sensible,  however,  of  the  impor- 
tance of  unanimity  among  our  constituents,  although 
we  often  wished  to  have  gone  faster,  we  slackened 
our  pace,  that  our  less  ardent  colleagues  might  keep 
up  with  us;  and  they,  on  their  part,  differing  nothing 
from  us  in  principle,  quickened  their  gait  somewhat 
beyond  that  which  their  prudence  might  of  itself 
have  advised,  and  thus  consolidated  the  phalanx 
which  breasted  the  power  of  Britain.  By  this 
harmony  of  the  bold  with  the  cautious,  we  advanced 
with  our  constituents  in  undivided  mass,  and  with 
fewer  examples  of  separation  than,  perhaps,  existed 
in  any  other  part  of  the  Union. 

I  do  not  remember  the  topics  of  Mr.  Henry's 
argument,  but  those  of  his  opposers  were  that  the 
same  sentiments  had  been  expressed  in  the  address 
and  memorials  of  the  preceding  session,  to  which  an 
answer  was  expected  and  not  yet  received.  I  well 
remember  the  cry  of  treason,  the  pause  of  Mr.  Henry 
at  the  name  of  George  the  III.,  and  the  presence  of 
mind  with  which  he  closed  his  sentence,  and  baffled 
the  charge  vociferated.  I  do  not  think  he  took  the 
position  in  the  middle  of  the  floor  which  you  mention. 
On  the  contrary,  I  think  I  recollect  him  standing  in 
the  very  place  which  he  continued  afterwards  habitu- 
ally to  occupy  in  the  House. 

The  censure  of  Mr.  E.  Randolph  on  Mr.  Henry  in 


i7°  Jefferson's  Works 

the  case  of  Philips,  was  without  foundation.  I 
remember  the  case,  and  took  my  part  in  it.  Philips 
was  a  mere  robber,  who  availing  himself  of  the 
troubles  of  the  times,  collected  a  banditti,  retired  to 
the  Dismal  Swamp,  and  from  thence  sallied  forth, 
plundering  and  maltreating  the  neighboring  inhabi- 
tants, and  covering  himself,  without  authority,  under 
the  name  of  a  British  subject.  Mr.  Henry,  then 
Governor,  communicated  the  case  to  me.  We  both 
thought  the  best  proceeding  would  be  by  bill  of 
attainder,  unless  he  delivered  himself  up  for  trial 
within  a  given  time.  Philips  was  afterwards  taken; 
and  Mr.  Randolph  being  Attorney  General,  and 
apprehending  he  would  plead  that  he  was  a  British 
subject,  taken  in  arms,  in  support  of  his  lawful 
sovereign,  and  as  a  prisoner  of  war  entitled  to  the 
protection  of  the  law  of  nations,  he  thought  the 
safest  proceeding  would  be  to  indict  him  at  common 
law  as  a  felon  and  robber.  Against  this  I  believe 
Philips  urged  the  same  plea:  he  was  overruled  and 
found  guilty. 

I  recollect  nothing  of  a  doubt  on  the  re-eligibility 
of  Mr.  Henry  to  the  government  when  his  term 
expired  in  1779,  nor  can  I  conceive  on  what  ground 
such  a  doubt  could  have  been  entertained,  unless 
perhaps  that  his  first  election  in  June,  1776,  having 
been  before  we  were  nationally  declared  independent, 
some  might  suppose  it  should  not  be  reckoned  as  one 
of  the  three  constitutional  elections. 

Of  the  projects  for  appointing  a  Dictator  there  are 


Correspondence  171 

said  to  have  been  two.  I  know  nothing  of  either  but 
by  hearsay.  The  first  was  in  Williamsburg  in  De- 
cember, 1776.  The  Assembly  had  the  month  before 
appointed  Mr.  Wythe,  Mr.  Pendleton,  George  Mason, 
Thomas  L.  Lee,  and  myself,  to  revise  the  whole  body 
of  laws,  and  adapt  them  to  our  new  form  of  govern- 
ment. I  left  the  House  early  in  December  to  prepare 
to  join  the  Committee  at  Fredericksburg,  the  place  of 
our  first  meeting.  What  passed,  therefore,  in  the 
House  in  December,  I  know  not,  and  have  not  the 
journals  of  that  session  to  look  into.  The  second 
proposition  was  in  June,  1781,  at  the  Staunton 
session  of  the  legislature.  No  trace  of  this  last 
motion  is  entered  on  the  journals  of  that  date,  which 
I  have  examined.  This  is  a  further  proof  that  the 
silence  of  the  journals  is  no  evidence  against  the 
fact  of  an  abortive  motion.  Among  the  names  of 
the  members  found  on  the  journal  of  the  Staunton 
session,  are  John  Taylor  of  Caroline,  General  Andrew 
Moore,  and  General  Edward  Stevens  of  Culpeper, 
now.  living.  It  would  be  well  to  ask  information 
from  each  of  them,  that  their  errors  of  memory,  or 
of  feeling,  may  be  corrected  by  collation. 

You  ask  if  I  would  have  any  objection  to  be 
quoted  as  to  the  fact  of  rescinding  the  last  of  Mr. 
Henry's  resolutions.  None  at  all  as  to  that  fact,  or 
its  having  been  passed  by  a  majority  of  one  vote 
only ;  the  scene  being  as  present  to  my  mind  as  that 
in  which  I  am  now  writing.  But  I  do  not  affirm, 
although  I  believe  it  was  the  sixth  resolution, 


1 7 2  Jefferson  rs  Works 

It  is  truly  unfortunate  that  those  engaged  in 
public  affairs  so  rarely  make  notes  of  transactions 
passing  within  their  knowledge.  Hence  history 
becomes  fable  instead  of  fact.  The  great  outlines 
may  be  true,  but  the  incidents  and  coloring  are 
according  to  the  faith  or  fancy  of  the  writer.  Had 
Judge  Marshall  taken  half  your  pains  in  sifting  and 
scrutinizing  facts,  he  would  not  have  given  to  the 
world,  as  true  history,  a  false  copy  of  a  record  under 
his  eye.  Burke  again  has  copied  him,  and  being  a 
second  writer  on  the  spot,  doubles  the  credit  of  the 
copy.  ^Vhen  writers  are  so  indifferent  as  to  the 
correctness  of  facts,  the  verification  of  which  lies  at 
their  elbow,  by  what  measure  shall  we  estimate  their 
relation  of  things  distant,  or  of  those  given  to  us 
through  the  obliquities  of  their  own  vision?  Our 
records,  it  is  true,  in  the  case  under  contemplation, 
were  destroyed  by  the  malice  and  vandalism  of  the 
British  military,  perhaps  of  their  government,  under 
whose  orders  they  committed  so  much  useless  mis- 
chief. But  printed  copies  remained,  as  your  exami- 
nation has  proved.  Those  which  were  apocryphal, 
then,  ought  not  to  have  been  hazarded  without 
examination.  Should  you  be  able  to  ascertain  the 
genuineness  of  the  sixth  and  seventh  resolutions,  I 
would  ask  a  line  of  information,  to  rectify  or  to 
confirm  my  own  impressions  respecting  them.  Ever 
affectionately  yours. 


Correspondence  *73 


TO    DR.    THOMAS    COOPER. 

MONTICELLO,    AugUSt    25,     1814. 

Dear  Sir, — In  my  letter  of  January  16th,  I  men- 
tioned to  you  that  it  had  long  been  in  contemplation 
to  get  an  university  established  in  this  State,  in 
which  all  the  branches  of  science  useful  to  us,  and 
at  this  day,  should  be  taught  in  their  highest  degree, 
and  that  this  institution  should  be  incorporated  with 
the  College  and  funds  of  William  and  Mary.  But 
what  are  the  sciences  useful  to  us,  and  at  this  day 
thought  useful  to  anybody?  A  glance  over  Bacon's 
arbor  scientice  will  show  the  foundation  for  this  ques- 
tion and  how  many  of  his  ramifications  of  science 
are  now  lopped  off  as  nugatory.  To  be  prepared  for 
this  new  establishment,  I  have  taken  some  pains  to 
ascertain  those  branches  which  men  of  sense,  as  well 
as  of  science,  deem  worthy  of  cultivation.  To  the 
statements  which  I  have  obtained  from  other 
sources,  I  should  highly  value  an  addition  of  one 
from  yourself.  You  know  our  country,  its  pursuits, 
its  faculties,  its  relations  with  others,  its  means  of 
establishing  and  maintaining  an  institution  of  general 
science,  and  the  spirit  of  economy  with  which  it 
requires  that  these  should  be  administered.  Will 
you  then  so  far  contribute  to  our  views  as  to  consider 
this  subject,  to  make  a  statement  of  the  branches  of 
science  which  you  think  worthy  of  being  taught,  as 
I  have  before  said,  at  this  day,  and  in  this  country? 
But  to  accommodate  them  to  our  economy,  it  will 


*74  Jefferson's  Works 

be  necessary  further  to  distribute  them  into  groups, 
each  group  comprehending  as  many  branches  as  one 
industrious  professor  may  competently  teach,  and, 
as  much  as  may  be,  a  duly  associated  family,  or  class, 
of  kindred  sciences.  The  object  of  this  is  to  bring 
the  whole  circle  of  useful  science  under  the  direction 
of  the  smallest  number  of  professors  possible,  and 
that  our  means  may  be  so  frugally  employed  as  to 
effect  the  greatest  possible  good.  We  are  about  to 
make  an  effort  for  the  introduction  of  this  institution. 
On  the  subject  of  patent  rights,  on  which  some- 
thing has  passed  between  us  before,  you  may  have 
noted  that  the  patent  board,  while  it  existed,  had 
proposed  to  reduce  their  decisions  to  a  system  of 
rules  as  fast  as  the  cases  presented  should  furnish 
materials.  They  had  done  but  little  when  the 
business  was  turned  over  to  the  courts  of  justice,  on 
whom  the  same  duty  has  now  devolved.  A  rule  has 
occurred  to  me,  which  I  think  would  reach  many  of 
our  cases,  and  go  far  towards  securing  the  citizen 
against  the  vexation  of  frivolous  patents.  It  is  to 
consider  the  invention  of  any  new  mechanical  power, 
or  of  any  new  combination  of  the  mechanical  powers 
already  known,  as  entitled  to  an  exclusive  grant ;  but 
that  the  purchaser  of  the  right  to  use  the  invention 
should  be  free  to  apply  it  to  every  purpose  of  which 
it  is  susceptible.  For  instance,  the  combination  of 
machinery  for  threshing  wheat,  should  be  applicable 
to  the  threshing  of  rye,  oats,  beans,  etc.  The  spin- 
ning machine   to   everything  of  which  it  may  be 


Correspondence  1 7  5 

found  capable;  the  chain  of  buckets,  of  which  we 
have  been  possessed  thousands  of  years,  we  should 
be  free  to  use  for  raising  water,  ore,  grains,  meals, 
or  anything  else  we  can  make  it  raise.  These  rights 
appear  sufficiently  distinct,  and  the  distinction 
sound  enough,  to  be  adopted  by  the  judges,  to 
whom  it  could  not  be  better  suggested  than  through 
the  medium  of  the  Emporium,  should  any  future 
paper  of  that  furnish  place  for  the  hint. 

Since  the  change  of  government  in  France,  I  am 
in  hopes  the  author  of  the  Review  of  Montesquieu 
will  consent  to  be  named,  and  perhaps  may  publish 
there  his  original  work;  not  that  their  press  is  free, 
but  that  the  present  government  will  be  restrained 
by  public  opinion,  whereas  the  late  military  des- 
potism respected  that  of  the  army  only.  I  salute 
you  with  friendship  and  respect. 


TO    JOSEPH    DELAPLAINE. 

MONTICELLO,    AugUSt    28,     1814. 

Sir, — Your  letter  of  the  17th  is  received.  I  have 
not  the  book  of  Munoz  containing  the  print  of 
Columbus.  That  work  came  out  after  I  left  Europe, 
and  we  have  not  the  same  facility  of  acquiring  new 
continental  publications  here  as  there.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  entire  credit  is  to  be  given  to  the  account 
of  the  print  rendered  by  him  in  the  extract  from  his 
work  which  you  have  sent  me ;  and  as  you  say  that 
several  have  attempted  translations  of  it,  each  differ- 


176  Jefferson's  Works 

ing  from  the  other,  and  none  satisfactory  to  yourself, 
I  will  add  to  your  stock  my  understanding  of  it, 
that  by  a  collation  of  the  several,  translations,  the 
author's  meaning  may  be  the  better  elicited. 

Translation:  "This  first  volume  presents  at  the 
beginning  the  portrait  of  the  discoverer,  designed 
and  engraved  with  care.  Among  many  paintings 
and  prints  which  are  falsely  sold  as  his  likenesses,  I 
have  seen  one  only  which  can  be  such,  and  it  is  that 
which  is  preserved  in  the  house  of  the  most  excellent 
Duke  of*Berwick  and  Lina,  a  descendant  of  our  hero ; 
a  figure  of  the  natural  size,  painted,  as  would  seem, 
in  the  last  century,  by  an  indifferent  copyist,  in 
which,  nevertheless,  appear  some  catches  from  the 
hand  of  Antonio  del  Rincon,  a  celebrated  painter  of 
the  Catholic  kings.  The  description  given  by  Fer- 
nando Colon,  of  the  countenance  of  his  father,  has 
served  to  render  the  likeness  more  resembling,  and 
to  correct  the  faults  which  are  observable  in  some  of 
the  features  either  imperfectly  seized  by  the  artist, 
or  disfigured  by  the  injuries  of  time." 

Paraphrase  explanatory  of  the  above.  Columbus 
was  employed  by  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  on  his 
voyage  of  discovery  in  1492.  Debry  tells  us  that 
"before  his  departure,  his  portrait  was  taken  by 
order  of  the  king  and  queen,"  and  most  probably  by 
Rincon,  their  first  painter.  Rincon  died  in  1500, 
and  Columbus  in  1506.  Fernando,  his  son,  an 
ecclesiastic,  wrote  the  life  of  his  father  in  1530, 
and  describes  in  that  his  father's  countenance.     An 


Correspondence  1 7  7 

indifferent  hand  in  the  17th  century,  copied  Rincon's 
painting,  which  copy  is  preserved  in  the  house  of 
the  Duke  of  Berwick.  In  1793,  when  a  print  of 
Columbus  was  wanting  for  the  •  history  of  Munoz, 
the  artist  from  this  copy,  injured  as  it  was  by  time, 
but  still  exhibiting  some  catches  of  Rincon's  style, 
and  from  the  verbal  description  of  the  countenance 
of  Columbus  in  the  history  by  his  son,  has  been 
enabled  to  correct  the  faults  of  the  copy,  whether 
those  of  the  copyist  or  proceeding  from  the  injuries 
of  time,  and  thus  to  furnish  the  best  likeness. 

The  Spanish  text  admits  this  construction,  and 
well-known  dates  and  historical  facts  verify  it. 

I  have  taken  from  the  second  volume  of  Debry 
a  rough  model  of  the  leaf  on  which  is  the  print  he 
has  given  of  Columbus  and  his  preface.  It  gives 
the  exact  size  and  outline  of  the  print  which,  with 
a  part  of  the  preface,  is  on  the  first  page  of  the  leaf, 
and  the  rest  on  the  second.  I  have  extracted  from 
it  what  related  to  the  print,  which  you  will  perceive 
could  not  be  cut  out  without  a  great  mutilation  of 
the  book.  This  would  not  be  regarded  as  to  its 
cost,  which  was  twelve  guineas  for  the  three  volumes 
in  Amsterdam,  but  that  it  seems  to  be  the  only 
copy  of  the  work  in  the  United  States,  and  I  know 
from  experience  the  difficulty,  if  not  impossibility, 
of  getting  another.  I  had  orders  lodged  with  several 
eminent  booksellers  in  the  principal  book-marts  of 
Europe,  to  wit:  London,  Paris,  Amsterdam,  Frank- 
fort,  Madrid,   several  years  before  this   copy  was 

VOL.  XIV 12 


i78  Jefferson's  Works 

obtained  at  the  accidental  sale  of  an  old  library  in 
Amsterdam,  on  the  death  of  its  proprietor. 

We  have,  then,  three  likenesses  of  Columbus, 
from  which  a  choice  is  to  be  made. 

i.  The  print  in  Munoz's  work,  from  a  copy  of 
Rincon 's  original,  taken  in  the  17th  century  by  an 
indifferent  hand,  with  conjectural  alterations  sug- 
gested by  the  verbal  description  of  the  younger 
Columbus  of  the  countenance  of  his  father. 

2.  The  miniature  of  Debry,  from  a  copy  taken  in 
the'  sixteenth  century  from  the  portrait  made  by 
order  of  the  king  and  queen,  probably  that  of  Rincon. 

3.  The  copy  in  my  possession  of  the  size  of  life, 
taken  for  me  from  the  original,  which  is  in  the 
gallery  of  Florence.  I  say  from  an  original,  because 
it  is  well  known  that  in  collections  of  any  note, 
and  that  of  Florence  is  the  first  in  the  world,  no 
copy  is  ever  admitted ;  and  an  original  existing  in 
Genoa  would  readily  be  obtained  for  a  royal  collec- 
tion in  Florence.  Vasari,  in  his  lives  of  the  painters, 
names  this  portrait  in  his  catalogue  of  the  paintings 
in  that  gallery,  but  does  not  say  by  whom  it  was 
made.  It  has  the  aspect  of  a  man  of  thirty-five, 
still  smooth-faced  and  in  the  vigor  of  life,  which 
would  place  its  date  about  1477,  fifteen  years  earlier 
than  that  of  Rincon.  Accordingly,  in  the  miniature 
of  Debry,  the  face  appears  more  furrowed  by  time. 
On  the  whole,  I  should  have  no  hesitation  at  giving 
this  the  preference  over  the  conjectural  one  of 
Munoz,  and  the  miniature  of  Debry. 


Correspondence  i 79 

The  book  from  which  I  cut  the  print  of  Vespucius 
which  I  sent  you,  has  the  following  title  and  date: 
"  Elogio  d'  Amerigo  Vespucci  che  ha  riportato  il 
premio  dalla  nobile  accademia  Etrusca  de  Cortona 
nel  de  15  d'Ottobre  dell'  Anno  1788,  del  P.  Stanislao 
Canovai  della  scuole  prie  publico  professore  di  fisica. 
Matematica  in  Firenze  1788,  nella  stamp  di  Pietro 
Allegrini."  This  print  is  unquestionably  from  the 
same  original  in  the  gallery  of  Florence  from  which 
my  copy  was  also  taken.  The  portrait  is  named 
in  the  catalogue  of  Vasari,  and  mentioned  also  by 
Bandini,  in  his  life  of  Americus  Vespucius;  but 
neither  gives  its  history.  Both  tell  us  there  was 
a  portrait  of  Vespucius  taken  by  Domenico,  and  a 
fine  head  of  him  by  Da  Vinci,  which,  however,  are 
lost,  so  that  it  would  seem  that  this  of  Florence  is 
the  only  one  existing. 

With  this  offering  of  what  occurs  to  me  on  the 
subject  of  these  prints,  accept  the  assurance  of  my 
respect. 


TO    DR.    THOMAS    COOPER. 

Monticello,  September  10,   1814. 

Dear  Sir, — I  regret  much  that  I  was  so  late  in 
consulting  you  on  the  subject  of  the'  academy  we 
wish  to  establish  here.  The  progress  of  that  business 
has  obliged  me  to  prepare  an  address  to  the  President 
of  thfe  Board  of  Trustees, — a  plan  for  its  organiza- 
tion.    I  send  you  a  copy  of  it  with  a  broad  margin, 


J8o  Jefferson's  Works 

that,  if  your  answer  to  mine  of  August  25th  be  not 
on  the  way,  you  may  be  so  good  as  to  write  your 
suggestions  either  in  the  margin  or  on  a  separate 
paper.  We  shall  still  be  able  to  avail  ourselves  of 
them  by  way  of  amendments. 

Your  letter  of  August  17th  is  received.  Mr. 
Ogilvie  left  us  four  days  ago,  on  a  tour  of  health, 
which  is  to  terminate  at  New  York,  from  whence 
he  will  take  his  passage  to  Britain  to  receive  livery 
and  seisin  of  his  new  dignities  and  fortunes.  I  am 
in  the  daily  hope  of  seeing  M.  Corrica,  and  the 
more  anxious  as  I  must  in  two  or  three  weeks 
commence  a  journey  of  long  absence  from  home. 

A  comparison  of  the  conditions  of  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States,  which  is  the  subject  of  your 
letter  of  August  17th,  would  be  an  interesting 
theme  indeed.  To  discuss  it  minutely  and  demon- 
stratively would  be  far  beyond  the  limits  of  a  letter. 
I  will  give  you,  therefore,  in  brief  only,  the  result 
of  my  reflections  on  the  subject.  I  agree  with  you 
in  your  facts,  and  in  many  of  your. reflections.  My 
conclusion  is  without  doubt,  as  I  am  sure  yours  will 
be,  when  the  appeal  to  your  sound  judgment  is 
seriously  made.  The  population  of  England  is 
composed  of  three  descriptions  of  persons  (for 
those  of  minor  note  are  too  inconsiderable  to  affect 
a  general  estimate).  These  are,  1.  The  aristocracy, 
comprehending  the  nobility,  the  wealthy  common- 
ers, the  high  grades  of  priesthood,  and  the  officers 
of   government.     2.    The    laboring    class.     3.    The 


Correspondence  1 8 1 

eleemosynary  class,  or  paupers,  who  are  about  one- 
fifth  of  the  whole.  The  aristocracy,  which  have  the 
laws  and  government  in  their  hands,  have  so  managed 
them  as  to  reduce  the  third  description  below  the 
means  of  supporting  life,  even  by  labor;  and  to 
force  the  second,  whether  employed  in  agriculture 
or  the  arts,  to  the  maximum  of  labor  which  the 
construction  of  the  human  body  can  endure,  and 
to  the  minimum  of  food,  and  of  the  meanest  kind, 
which  will  preserve  it  in  life,  and  in  strength  sufficient 
to  perform  its  functions.  To  obtain  food  enough, 
and  clothing,  not  only  their  whole  strength  must 
be  unremittingly  exerted,  but  the  utmost  dexterity 
also  which  they  can  acquire;  and  those  of  great 
dexterity  only  can  keep  their  ground,  while  those 
of  less  must  sink  into  the  class  of  paupers.  Nor  is 
it  manual  dexterity  alone,  but  the  acutest  resources 
of  the  mind  also  which  are  impressed  into  this 
struggle  for  life;  and  such  as  have  means  a  little 
above  the  rest,  as  the  master- workmen,  for  instance, 
must  strengthen  themselves  by  acquiring  as  much 
of  the  philosophy  of  their  trade  as  will  enable  them 
to  compete  with  their  rivals,  and  keep  themselves 
above  ground.  Hence  the  industry  and  manual 
dexterity  of  their  journeymen  and  day-laborers, 
and  the  science  of  their  master- workmen,  keep 
them  in  the  foremost  ranks  of  competition  with 
those  of  other  nations;  and  the  less  dexterous  indi- 
viduals, falling  into  the  eleemosynary  ranks,  furnish 
materials  for  armies  and  navies  to  defend  their 


1 8 2  Jeff erson!s  Works 

country,  exercise  piracy  on  the  ocean,  and  carry 
conflagration,  plunder  and  devastation,  on  the 
shores  of  all  those  who  endeavor  to  withstand  their 
aggressions.  A  society  thus  constituted  possesses 
certainly  the  means  of  defence.  But  what  does 
it  defend?  The  pauperism  of  the  lowest  class,  the 
abject  oppression  of  the  laboring,  and  the  luxury, 
the  riot,  the  domination  and  the  vicious  happiness 
of  the  aristocracy.  In  their  hands,  the  paupers 
are  used  as  tools  to  maintain  their  own  wretchedness, 
and  to  keep  down  the  laboring  portion  by  shooting 
them  whenever  the  desperation  produced  by  the 
cravings  of  their  stomachs  drives  them  into  riots. 
Such  is  the  happiness  of  scientific  England;  now 
let  us  see  the  American  side  of  the  medal. 

And,  first,  we  have  no  paupers,  the  old  and  crippled 
among  us,  who  possess  nothing  and  have  no  families 
to  take  care  of  them,  being  too  few  to  merit  notice 
as  a  separate  section  of  society,  or  to  affect  a  general 
estimate.  The  great  mass  of  our  population  is  of 
laborers;  our  rich,  who  can  live  without  labor, 
either  manual  or  professional,  being  few,  and  of 
moderate  wealth.  Most  of  the  laboring  class  possess 
property,  cultivate  their  own  lands,  have  families, 
and  from  the  demand  for  their  labor  are  enabled  to 
exact  from  the  rich  and  the  competent  such  prices 
as  enable  them  to  be  fed  abundantly,  clothed  above 
mere  decency,  to  labor  moderately  and  raise  their 
families.  They  are  not  driven  to  the  ultimate 
resources  of  dexterity  and  skill,  because  their  wares 


Correspondence  183 

will  sell  although  not  quite  so  nice  as  those  of  Eng- 
land. The  wealthy,  on  the  other  hand,  and  those 
at  their  ease,  know  nothing  of  what  the  Europeans 
call  luxury.  They  have  only  somewhat  more  of 
the  comforts  and  decencies  of  life  than  those  who 
furnish  them.  Can  any  condition  of  society  be 
more  desirable  than  this?  Nor  in  the  class  of 
laborers  do  I  mean  to  withhold  from  the  comparison 
that  portion  whose  color  has  condemned  them,  in 
certain  parts  of  our  Union,  to  a  subjection  to  the 
will  of  others.  Even  these  are  better  fed  in  these 
States,  warmer  clothed,  and  labor  less  than  the 
journeymen  or  day-laborers  of  England.  They  have 
the  comfort,  too,  of  numerous  families,  in  the  midst 
of  whom  they  live  without  want,  or  fear  of  it;  a 
solace  which  few  of  the  laborers  of  England  possess. 
They  are  subject,  it  is  true,  to  bodily  coercion;  but 
are  not  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  British  soldiers 
and  seamen  subject  to  the  same,  without  seeing, 
at  the  end  of  their  career,  when  age  and  accident 
shall  have  rendered  them  unequal  to  labor,  the 
certainty,  which  the  other  has,  that  he  will  never 
want?  And  has  not  the  British  seaman,  as  much 
as  the  African,  been  reduced  to  this  bondage  by 
force,  in  flagrant  violation  of  his  own  consent,  and 
of  his  natural  right  in  his  own  person?  and  with 
the  laborers  of  England  generally,  does  not  the 
moral  coercion  of  want  subject  their  will  as  despotic- 
ally to  that  of  their  employer,  as  the  physical  con- 
straint does  the  soldier,  the  seaman,  or  the  slave? 


1 84  Jefferson's  Works 

• 

But  do  not  mistake  me.  I  am  not  advocating 
slavery.  I  am  not  justifying  the  wrongs  we  have 
committed  on  a  foreign  people,  by  the  example  of 
another  nation  committing  equal  wrongs  on  their 
own  subjects.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  nothing 
I  would  not  sacrifice  to  a  practicable  plan  of  abolish- 
ing every  vestige  of  this  moral  and  political  depravity. 
But  I  am  at  present  comparing  the  condition  and 
degree  of  suffering  to  which  oppression  has  reduced 
the  man  of  one  color,  with  the  condition  and  degree 
of  suffering  to  which  oppression  has  reduced  the  man 
of  another  color;  equally  condemning  both.  Now 
let  us  compute  by  numbers  the  sum  of  happiness 
of  the  two  countries.  In  England,  happiness  is 
the  lot  of  the  aristocracy  only;  and  the  proportion 
they  bear  to  the  laborers  and  paupers,  you  know 
better  than  I  do.  Were  I  to  guess  that  they  are 
four  in  every  hundred,  then  the  happiness  of  the 
nation  would  be  to  its  misery  as  one  in  twenty-five. 
In  the  United"  States  it  is  as  eight  millions  to  zero, 
or  as  all  to  none.  But  it  is  said  they  possess  the 
means  of  defence,  and  that  we  do  not.  How  so? 
Are  we  not  men?  Yes;  but  our  men  are  so  happy 
at  home  that  they  will  not  hire  themselves  to  be  shot 
at  for  a  shilling  a  day.  Hence  we  can  have  no 
standing  armies  for  defence,  because  we  have  no 
paupers  to  furnish  the  materials.  The  Greeks  and 
Romans  had  no  standing  armies,  yet  they  defended 
themselves.  The  Greeks  by  their  laws,  and  the 
Romans  by  the  spirit  of  their  people,  took  care  to 


Correspondence  *85 

put  into  the  hands  of  their  rulers  no  such  engine  of 
oppression  as  a  standing  army.  Their  system  was 
to  make  every  man  a  soldier,  and  oblige  him  to 
repair  to  the  standard  of  his  country  whenever 
that  was  reared.  This  made  them  invincible;  and 
the  same  remedy  will  make  us  so.  In  the  beginning 
of  our  government  we  were  willing  to  introduce  the 
least  coercion  possible  on  the  will  of  the  citizen. 
Hence  a  system  of  military  duty  was  established 
too  indulgent  to  his  indolence.  This  is  the  first 
opportunity  we  have  had  of  trying  it,  and  it  has 
completely  failed;  an  issue  foreseen  by  many,  and 
for  which  remedies  have  been  proposed.  That  of 
classing  the  militia  according  to  age,  and  allotting 
each  age  to  the  particular  kind  of  service  to  which 
it  was  competent,  was  proposed  to  Congress  in 
1805, and  subsequently;  and,  on  the  last  trial  was  lost, 
I  believe,  by  a  single  vote  only.  Had  it  prevailed, 
what  has  now  happened  would  not  have  happened. 
Instead  of  burning  our  Capitol,  we  should  have 
possessed  theirs  in  Montreal  and  Quebec.  We  must 
now  adopt  it,  and  all  will  be  safe.  We  had  in  the 
United  States  in  1805,  in  round  numbers  of  free, 
able-bodied  men, 

120,000  of  the  ages  of  18  to  21  inclusive. 
200,000  22       20 

a  a  it         _  i  ( 

200,000  27   35 

200,000   "    "   3S  "  45 

In  all,  720,000   "    "   18  "  45 


1 86  Jefferson's  Works 

With  this  force  properly  classed,  organized,  trained, 
armed  and  subject  to  tours  of  a  year  of  military  duty, 
we  have  no  more  to  fear  for  the  defence  of  our  country 
than  those  who  have  the  resources  of  despotism 
and  pauperism. 

But,  you  will  say,  we  have  been  devastated  in 
the  meantime.  True,  some  of  our  public  buildings 
have  been  burnt,  and  some  scores  of  individuals 
on  the  tide- water  have  lost  their  movable  property 
and  their  houses.  I  pity  them,  and  execrate  the 
barbarians  who  delight  in  unavailing  mischief.  But 
these  individuals  have  their  lands  and  their  hands 
left.  They  are  not  paupers,  they  have  still  better 
means  of  subsistence  than  |  of  the  people  of  Eng- 
land. Again,  the  English  have  burnt  our  Capitol 
and  President's  house  by  means  of  their  force.  We 
can  burn  their  St.  James'  and  St.  Paul's  by  means 
of  our  money,  offered  to  their  own  incendiaries,  of 
whom  there  are  thousands  in  London  who  would 
do  it  rather  than  starve.  But  it  is  against  the  laws 
of  civilized  warfare  to  employ  secret  incendiaries. 
Is  it  not  equally  so  to  destroy  the  works  of  art  by 
armed  incendiaries?  Bonaparte,  possessed  at  times 
of  almost  every  capital  of  Europe,  with  all  his 
despotism  and  power,  injured  no  monument  of  art. 
If  a  nation,  breaking  through  all  the  restraints  of 
civilized  character,  uses  its  means  of  destruction 
(power,  for  example)  without  distinction  of  objects, 
may  we  not  use  our  means  (our  money  and  their 
pauperism)    to   retaliate   their  barbarous   ravages? 


Correspondence  * 8  7 

Are  we  obliged  to  use  for  resistance  exactly  the 
weapons  chosen  by  them  for  aggression?  When 
they  destroyed  Copenhagen  by  superior  force,  against 
all  the  laws  of  God  and  man,  would  it  have  been 
unjustifiable  for  the  Danes  to  have  destroyed  their 
ships  by  torpedoes  ?  Clearly  not ;  and  they  and  we 
should  now  be  justifiable  in  the  conflagration  of 
St.  James'  and  St.  Paul's.  And  if  we  do  not  carry 
it  into  execution,  it  is  because  we  think  it  more 
moral  and  more  honorable  to  set  a  good  example, 
than  follow  a  bad  one. 

So  much  for  the  happiness  of  the  people  of  Eng- 
land, and  the  morality  of  their  government,  in  com- 
parison with  the  happiness  and  the  morality  of 
America.     Let  us  pass  to  another  subject. 

The  crisis,  then,  of  the  abuses  of  banking  is  arrived. 
The  banks  have  pronounced  their  own  sentence  of 
death.  Between  two  and  three  hundred  millions 
of  dollars  of  their  promissory  notes  are  in  the  hands 
of  the  people,  for  solid  produce  and  property  sold, 
and  they  formally  declare  they  will  not  pay  them. 
This  is  an  act  of  bankruptcy  of  course,  and  will 
be  so  pronounced  by  any  court  before  which  it  shall 
be  brought.  But  cut  bono?  The  law  can  only 
uncover  their  insolvency,  by  opening  to  its  suitors 
their  empty  vaults.  Thus  by  the  dupery  of  our 
citizens,  and  tame  acquiescence  of  our  legislators, 
the  nation  is  plundered  of  two  or  three  hundred 
millions  of  dollars,  treble  the  amount  of  debt  con- 
tracted in  the  Revolutionary  war,  and  which,  instead 


'i 88  Jefferson's  Works 

of  redeeming  our  liberty,  has  been  expended  on 
sumptuous  houses,  carriages,  and  dinners.  A  fear- 
ful tax!  if  equalized  on  all;  but  overwhelming  and 
convulsive  by  its  partial  fall.  The  crush  will  be 
tremendous;  very  different  from  that  brought  on 
by  our  paper  money.  That  rose  and  fell  so  gradually 
that  it  kept  all  on  their  guard,  and  affected  severely 
only  early  or  long-winded  contracts.  Here  the 
contract  of  yesterday  crushes  in  an  instant  the  one 
or  the  other  party.  The  banks  stopping  payment 
suddenly,  all  their  mercantile  and  city  debtors  do 
the  same;  and  all,  in  short,  except  those  in  the 
country,  who,  possessing  property,  will  be  good  in 
the  end.  But  this  resource  will  not  enable  them  to 
pay  a  cent  on  the  dollar.  From  the  establishment 
of  the  United  States  Bank,  to  this  day,  I  have 
preached  against  this  system,  but  have  been  sensible 
no  cure  could  be  hoped  but  in  the  catastrophe  now 
happening.  The  remedy  was  to  let  banks  drop 
gradation  at  the  expiration  of  their  charters,  and 
for  the  State  governments  to  relinquish  the  power 
of  establishing  others.  This  would  not,  as  it  should 
not,  have  given  the  power  of  establishing  them  to 
Congress.  But  Congress  could  then  have  issued 
treasury  notes  payable  within  a  fixed  period,  and 
founded  on  a  specific  tax,  the  proceeds  of  which, 
as  they  came  in,  should  be  exchangeable  for  the' 
notes  of  that  particular  emission  only.  This  de- 
pended, it  is  true,  on  the  will  of  the  State  legislatures, 
and  would  have  brought  on  us  the  phalanx  of  paper 


Correspondence  1 89 

interest.  But  that  interest  is  now  defunct.  Their 
gossamer  castles  are  dissolved,  and  they  can  no 
longer  impede  and  overawe  the  salutary  measures 
of  the  government.  Their  paper  was  received  on  a 
.belief  that  it  was  cash  on  demand.  Themselves 
have  declared  it  was  nothing,  and  such  scenes  are 
now  to  take  place  as  will  open  the  eyes  of  credulity 
and  of  insanity  itself,  to  the  dangers  of  a  paper 
medium  abandoned  to  the  discretion  of  avarice 
and  of  swindlers.  It  is  impossible  not  to  deplore 
our  past  follies,  and  their  present  consequences, 
but  let  them  at  least  be  warnings  against  like  follies 
in  future.  The  banks  have  discontinued  them- 
selves. We  are  now  without  any  medium;  and 
necessity,  as  well  as  patriotism  and  confidence,  will 
make  us  all  eager  to  receive  treasury  notes,  if  founded 
on  specific  taxes.  Congress  may  now  borrow  of 
the  public,  and  without  interest,  all  the  money  they 
may  want,  to  the  amount  of  a  competent  circulation, 
by  merely  issuing  their  own  promissory  notes,  of 
proper  denominations  for  the  larger  purposes  of 
circulation,  but  not  for  the  small.  Leave  that  door 
open  for  the  entrance  of  metallic  money.  And,  to 
give  readier  credit  to  their  bills,  without  obliging 
themselves  to  give  cash  for  them  on  demand,  let 
their  collectors  be  instructed  to  do  so,  when  they 
have  cash;  thus,  in  some  measure,  performing  the 
functions  of  a  bank,  as  to  their  own  notes.  Provi- 
dence seems,  indeed,  by  a  special  dispensation,  to 
have  put  down  for  us,  without  a  struggle,  that  very 


x9°  Jefferson's  Works 

paper  enemy  which  the  interest  of  our  citizens  long 
since  required  ourselves  to  put  down,  at  whatever 
risk.  The  work  is  done.  The  moment  is  pregnant 
with  futurity,  and  if  not  seized  at  once  by  Congress, 
I  know  not  on  what  shoal  our  bark  is  next  to  be 
stranded.  The  State  legislatures  should  be  immedi- 
ately urged  to  relinquish  the  right  of  establishing 
banks  of  discount.  Most  of  them  will  comply,  on 
patriotic  principles,  under  the  convictions  of  the 
moment;  and  the  non-complying  may  be  crowded 
into  concurrence  by  legitimate  devices.  Vale,  et 
me,  ut  amaris,  ama. 


TO    SAMUEL    H.    SMITH,    ESQ. 

Monticello,  September  21,   1814. 

Dear  Sir, — I  learn  from  the  newspapers  that 
the  vandalism  of  our  enemy  has  triumphed  at 
Washington  over  science  as  well  as  the  arts,  by 
the  destruction  of  the  public  library  with  the 
noble  edifice  in  which  it  was  deposited.  Of  this 
transaction,  as  of  that  of  Copenhagen,  the  world 
will  entertain  but  one  sentiment.  They  will  see 
a  nation  suddenly  withdrawn  from  a  great  war, 
full  armed  and  full  handed,  taking  advantage  of 
another  whom  they  had  recently  forced  into  it, 
unarmed,  and  unprepared,  to  indulge  themselves  in 
acts  of  barbarism  which  do  not  belong  to  a  civilized 
age.  When  Van  Ghent  destroyed  their  shipping 
at  Chatham,  and  De  Ruyter  rode  triumphantly  up 


Correspondence  19 1 

the  Thames,  he  might  in  like  manner,  by  the  acknowl- 
edgment of  their  own  historians,  have  forced  all 
their  ships  up  to  London  bridge,  and  there  have  burnt 
them,  the  Tower,  and  city,  had  these  examples  been 
then  set.  London,  when  thus  menaced,  was  near 
a  thousand  years  old;  Washington  is  but  in  its  teens. 
I  presume  it  will  be  among  the  early  objects  of 
Congress  to  re-commence  their  collection.  This 
will  be  difficult  while  the  war  continues,  and  inter- 
course with  Europe  is  attended  with  so  much  risk. 
You  know  my  collection,  its  condition  and  extent. 
I  have  been  fifty  years  making  it,  and  have  spared 
no  pains,  opportunity  or  expense,  to  make  it  what 
it  is.  While  residing  in  Paris,  I  devoted  every 
afternoon  I  was  disengaged,  for  a  summer  or  two, 
in  examining  all  the  principal  bookstores,  turning 
over  every  book  with  my  own  hand,  and  putting  by 
everything  which  related  to  America,  and  indeed 
whatever  was  rare  and  valuable  in  every  science. 
Besides  this,  I  had  standing  orders  during  the  whole  ' 
time  I  was  in  Europe,  on  its  principal  book-marts, 
particularly  Amsterdam,  Frankfort,  Madrid  and 
London,  for  such  works  relating  to  America  as 
could  not  be  found  in  Paris.  So  that  in  that  depart- 
ment particularly,  such  a  collection  was  made  as 
probably  can  never  again  be  effected,  because  it  is 
hardly  probable  that  the  same  opportunities,  the 
same  time,  industry,  perseverance  and  expense, 
with  some  knowledge  of  the  bibliography  of  the 
subject,  would  again  happen  to  be  in  concurrence. 


i9 2  Jefferson's  Works 

During  the  same  period,  and  after  my  return  to 
America,  I  was  led  to  procure,  also,  whatever  related 
to  the  duties  of  those  in  the  high  concerns  of  the 
nation.  So  that  the  collection,  which  I  suppose 
is  of  between  nine  and  ten  thousand  volumes,  while 
it  includes  what  is  chiefly  valuable  in  science  and 
literature  generally,  extends  more  particularly  to 
whatever  belongs  to  the  American  statesman.  In 
the  diplomatic  and  parliamentary  branches,  it  is 
particularly  full.  It  is  long  since  I  have  been 
sensible  it  ought  not  to  continue  private  property, 
and  had  provided  that  at  my  death,  Congress  should 
have  the  refusal  of  it  at  their  own  price.  But  the 
loss  they  have  now  incurred,  makes  the  present  the 
proper  moment  for  their  accommodation,  without 
regard  to  the  small  remnant  of  time  and  the  barren 
use  of  my  enjoying  it.  I  ask  of  your  friendship, 
therefore,  to  make  for  me  the  tender  of  it  to  the 
.  library  committee  of  Congress,  not  knowing  myself 
of  whom  the  committee  consists.  I  enclose  you 
the  catalogue,  which-  will  enable  them  to  judge  of 
its  contents.  Nearly  the  whole  are  well  bound, 
abundance  of  them  elegantly,  and  of  the  choicest 
editions  existing.  They  may  be  valued  by  persons 
named  by  themselves,  and  the  payment  made  con- 
venient to  the  public.  It  may  be,  for  instance,  in 
such  annual  instalments  as  the  law  of  Congress  has 
left  at  their  disposal,  or  in  stock  of  any  of  their  late 
loans,  or  of  any  loan  they  may  institute  at  this 
session,  so  as  to  spare  the  present  calls  of  our  country, 


Jefferson's  Tories  *9 


and  await  its  days  of  peace  and  prosperity.     They 
may  enter,  nevertheless,  into  immediate  use  of  it, 
as   eighteen   or  twenty  wagons  would  place   it  in 
Washington  in  a  single  trip  of  a  fortnight.     I  should 
be  willing  indeed,  to  retain  a  few  of  the  books,  to 
amuse  the  time  I  have  yet  to  pass,  which  might  be 
valued  with  the  rest,  but  not  included  in  the  sum 
of  valuation  until  they  should  be  restored  at  my 
death,  which  I  would  carefully  provide  for,  so  that 
the  whole  library  as  it  stands  in  the  catalogue  at 
this  moment  should  be  theirs  without  any  garbling. 
Those  I  should  like  to  retain  would  be  chiefly  classi- 
cal and  mathematical.     Some  few  in  other  branches, 
and  particularly  one  of  the  five  encyclopedias  in 
the  catalogue.     But  this,  if  not  acceptable,  would 
not  be  urged.     I  must  add,  that  I  have  not  revised 
the  library  since  I  came  home  to  live,  so  that  it  is 
probable  some  of  the  books  may  be  missing,  except 
in  the  chapters  of  Law  and  Divinity,  which  have 
beeri  revised  and  stand  exactly  as  in  the  catalogue. 
The  return  of  the  catalogue  will  of  course  be  needed, 
whether  the  tender  be  accepted  or  not.     I  do  not 
know  that  it  contains  any  branch  of  science  which 
Congress  would  wish  to  exclude  from  their  collection; 
there  is,  in  fact,  no  subject  to  which  a  member  of 
Congress    may   not    have    occasion   to   refer.     But 
such  a  wish  would  not  correspond  with  my  views  of 
preventing  its  dismemberment.     My  desire  is  either 
to  place  it  in  their  hands  entire,  or  to  preserve  it 
30  here.     I  am  engaged  in  making  an  alphabetical 

VOL,    XIV— 13 


i94  Jefferson's  Works 

index  of  the  authors*  names,  to  be  annexed  to  the 
catalogue,  which  I  will  forward  to  you  as  soon  as 
completed.  Any  agreement  you  shall  be  so  good 
as  to  take  the  trouble  of  entering  into  with  the  com- 
mittee, I  hereby  confirm.  Accept  the  assurance 
of  my  great  esteem  and  respect. 


TO    THE    PRESIDENT    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 
(JAMES    MADISON). 

Monticello,  September  24,  1814. 

Dear  Sir, — It  is  very  long  since  I  troubled  you 
with  a  letter,  which  has  proceeded  from  discretion 
and  not  want  of  inclination,  because  I  have  really 
had  nothing  to  write  which  ought  to  have  occupied 
your  time.  But  in  the  late  events  at  Washington 
I  have  felt  so  much  for  you  that  I  cannot  withhold 
the  expression  of  my  sympathies.  For  although 
every  reasonable  man  must  be  sensible  that  all  you 
can  do  is  to  order,  that  execution  must  depend  on 
others,  and  failures  be  imputed  to  them  alone,  yet 
I  know  that  when  such  failures  happen,  they  afflict 
even  those  who  have  done  everything  they  could 
to  prevent  them.  Had  General  Washington  him- 
self been  now  at  the  head  of  our  affairs,  the  same 
event  would  probably  have  happened.  We  all 
remember  the  disgraces  which  befell  us  in  his  time 
in  a  trifling  war  with  one  or  two  petty  tribes  of 
Indians,  in  which  two  armies  were  cut  off  by  not 
half  their  numbers.     Every  one  knew,  and  I  person- 


Correspondence  *  9  5 

ally  knew,  because  I  was  then  of  his  council,  that  no 
blame  was  imputable  to  him,  and  that  his  officers 
alone  were  the  cause  of  the  disasters.  They  must 
now  do  the  same  justice.  I  am  happy  to  turn  to  a 
countervailing  event,  and  to  congratulate  you  on 
the  destruction  of  a  second  hostile  fleet  on  the  lakes 
by  McDonough;  of  which,  however,  we  have  not  the 
details.  While  our  enemies  cannot  but  feel  shame 
for  their  barbarous  achievements  at  Washington, 
they  will  be  stung  to  the  soul  by  these  repeated  vic- 
tories over  them  on  that  element  on  which  they  wish 
•the  world  to  think  them  invincible.  We  have  dis- 
sipated that  error.  They  must  now  feel  a  conviction 
themselves  that  we  can  beat  them  gun  to  gun,  ship 
to  ship  and  fleet  to  fleet,  and  that  their  early  suc- 
cesses on  the  land  have  been  either  purchased  from 
traitors,  or  obtained  from  raw  men  entrusted  of 
necessity  with  commands  for  which  no  experience 
had  qualified  them,  and  that  every  day  is  adding 
that  experience  to  unquestioned  bravery. 

I  am  afraid  the  failure  of  our  banks  will  occasion 
embarrassment  for  awhile,  although  it  restores  to  us 
a  fund  which  ought  never  to  have  been  surrendered 
by  the  nation,  and  which  now,  prudently  used, 
will  carry  us  through  all  the  fiscal  difficulties  of  the 
war.  At  the  request  of  Mr.  Eppes,  who  was  chair- 
man of  the  committee  of  finance  at  the  preceding 
session,  I  had  written  him  some  long  letters  on  this 
subject.  Colonel  Monroe  asked  the  reading  of  them 
some  time  ago,  and  I  now  send  him  another,  written 


*96  Jefferson's  Works 

to  a  member  of  our  legislature,  who  requested  my 
ideas  on  the  recent  bank  events.  They  are  too  long 
for  your  reading,  but  Colonel  Monroe  can,  in  a  few 
sentences,  state  to  you  their  outline. 

Learning  by  the  papers  the  loss  of  the  library  of 
Congress,  I  have  sent  my  catalogue  to  S.  H.  Smith, 
to  make  to  their  library  committee  the  offer  of  my 
collection,  now  of  about  nine  or  ten  thousand  vol- 
umes, which  may  be  delivered  to  them  instantly,  on 
a  valuation  by  persons  of  their  own  naming,  and  be 
paid  for  in  any  way,  and  at  any  term  they  please;  in 
stock,  for  example,  of  any  loan  they  have  unissued,, 
or  of  any  one  they  may  institute  at  this  session;  or 
in  such  annual  instalments  as  are  at  the  disposal  of 
the  committee.  I  believe  you  are  acquainted  with 
the  condition  of  the  books,  should  they  wish  to  be 
ascertained  of  this.  I  have  long  been  sensible  that 
my  library  would  be  an  interesting  possession  for  the 
public,  and  the  loss  Congress  has  recently  sustained, 
and  the  difficulty  of  replacing  it,  while  our  inter- 
course with  Europe  is  so  obstructed,  renders  this 
the  proper  moment  for  placing  it  at  their  service. 
Accept  assurances  of  my  constant  and  affectionate 
friendship  and  respect. 


TO    MR.    MILES    KING. 

Monticello,  September  26,   1814. 
Sir, — I  duly  received  your  letter  of  August  20th, 
and  I  thank  you  for  it,  because  I  believe  it  was  writ- 


Correspondence  197 

ten  with  kind  intentions,  and  a  personal  concern 
for  my  future  happiness.  Whether  the  particular 
revelation  which  you  suppose  to  have  been  made  to 
yourself  wTere  real  or  imaginary,  your  reason  alone 
is  the  competent  judge.  For  dispute  as  long  as  we 
will  on  religious  tenets,  our  reason  at  last  must  ulti- 
mately decide,  as  it  is  the  only  oracle  which  God  has 
given  us  to  determine  between  what  really  comes 
from  Him  and  the  phantasms  of  a  disordered  or  de- 
luded imagination.  When  He  means  to  make  a  per- 
sonal revelation,  He  carries  conviction  of  its  authen- 
ticity to  the  reason  He  has  bestowed  as  the  umpire 
of  truth.  You  believe  you  have  been  favored  with 
such  a  special  communication.  Your  reason,  not 
mine,  is  to  judge  of  this ;  and  if  it  shall  be  His  pleasure 
to  favor  me  with  a  like  admonition,  I  shall  obey  it 
with  the  same  fidelity  with  which  I  would  obey  His 
known  will  in  all  cases.  Hitherto  I  have  been  under 
the  guidance  of  that  portion  of  reason  which  He  has 
thought  proper  to  deal  out  to, me.  I  have  followed 
it  faithfully  in  all  important  cases,  to  such  a  degree 
at  least  as  leaves  me  without  uneasiness;  and  if  on 
minor  occasions  I  have  erred  from  its  dictates,  I  have 
trust  in  Him  who  made  us  what  we  are,  and  know  it 
was  not  His  plan  to  make  us  always  unerring.  He 
has  formed  us  moral  agents.  Not  that,  in  the  per- 
fection of  His  state,  He  can  feel  pain  or  pleasure  in 
anything  we  may  do ;  He  is  far  above  our  power ;  but 
that  we  may  promote  the  happiness  of  those  with 
whom  He  has  placed  us  in  society,  by  acting  honestly 


i98  Jefferson's  Works 

towards  all,  benevolently  to  those  who  fall  within 
our  way,  respecting  sacredly  their  rights,  bodily  and 
mental,  and  cherishing  especially  their  freedom  of 
conscience,  as  we  value  our  own.  I  must  ever  believe 
that  religion  substantially  good  which  produces  an 
honest  life,  and  we  have  been  authorized  by  One 
whom  you  and  I  equally  respect,  to  judge  of  the  tree 
by  its  fruit.  Our  particular  principles  of  religion  are 
a  subject  of  accountability  to  our  God  alone.  I  in- 
quire after  no  man's,  and  trouble  none  with  mine; 
nor  is  it  given  to  us  in  this  lif e  to  know  whether  yours 
or  mine,  our  friends  or  our  foes,  are  exactly  the  right. 
Nay,  we  have  heard  it  said  that  there  is  not  a  Quaker 
or  a  Baptist,  a  Presbyterian  or  an  Episcopalian,  a 
Catholic  or  a  Protestant  in  heaven ;  that,  on  entering 
tfyat  gate,  we  leave  those  badges  of  schism  behind, 
and  find  ourselves  united  in  those  principles  only  in 
which  God  has  united  us  all.  Let  us  not  be  uneasy 
then  about  the  different  roads  we  may  pursue,  as 
believing  them  the  shortest,  to  that  our  last  abode; 
but,  following  the  guidance  of  a  good  conscience,  let 
us  be  happy  in  the  hope  that  by  these  different  paths 
we  shall  all  meet  in  the  end.  And  that  you  and  I 
may  there  meet  and  embrace,  is  my  earnest  prayer. 
And  with  this  assurance  I  salute  you  with  brotherlv 
esteem  and  respect. 


Correspondency  199 

TO    JOSEPH    C.    CABELL,    ESQ. 

Monticello,  September  30,   18 14. 

Dear  Sir, — In  my  letter  of  the  23d,  an  important 
fact  escaped  me  which,  lest  it  should  not  occur  to  you, 
I  will  mention.  The  moneys  arising  from  the  sales 
of  the  glebe  lands  in  the  several  counties,  have  gen- 
erally, I  believe,  and  under  the  sanction  of  the  legis- 
lature, been  deposited  in  some  of  the  banks.  So  also 
the  funds  of  the  literary  society.  These  debts, 
although  parceled  among  the  counties,  yet  the  coun- 
ties constitute  the  State,  and  their  representatives 
the  legislature,  united  into  one  whole.  It  is  right 
then  that  owing  $300,000  to  the  banks,  they  should 
stay  so  much  of  that  sum  in  their  own  hands  as  will 
secure  what  the  banks  owe  to  their  constituents  as 
divided  into  counties.  Perhaps  the  loss  of  these 
funds  would  be  the  most  lasting  of  the  evils  proceed- 
ing from  the  insolvency  of  the  banks.  Ever  yours 
with  great  esteem  and  respect. 


TO    DR.    THOMAS    COOPER. 

Monticello,  October  7,  1814. 
Dear  Sir, — Your  several  favors  of  September 
15th,  2 1  st,  2 2d,  came  all  together  by  our  last  mail. 
I  have  given  to  that  of  the  1 5th  a  single  reading  only, 
because  the  handwriting  (not  your  own)  is  micro- 
scopic and  difficult,  and  because  I  shall  have  an 
opportunity  of  studying  it  in  the  Portfolio  in  print. 


200  Jefferson's  Works 

According  to  your  request  I  return  it  for  that  publi- 
cation, where  it  will  do  a  great  deal  of  good.  It  will 
give  our  young  men  some  idea  of  what  constitutes 
a  well-educated  man;  that  Caesar  and  Virgil,  and  a 
few  books  of  Euclid,  do  not  really  contain  the  sum 
of  all  human  knowledge,  nor  give  to  a  man  figure  in 
the  ranks  of  science.  Your  letter  will  be  a  valuable 
source  of  consultation  for  us  in  our  collegiate  courses, 
when,  and  if  ever,  we  advance  to  that  stage  of  our 
establishment. 

I  agree  with  yours  of  the  2 2d,  that  a  professorship 
of  Theology  should  have  no  place  in  our  institution. 
But  we  cannot  always  do  what  is  absolutely  best. 
Those  with  whom  we  act,  entertaining  different 
views,  have  the  power  and  the  right  of  carrying 
them  into  practice.  Truth  advances,  and  error 
recedes  step  by  step  only ;  and  to  do  to  our  fellow  men 
the  most  good  in  our  power,  we  must  lead  where  we 
can,  follow  where  we  cannot,  and  still  go  with  them, 
watching  always  the  favorable  moment  for  helping 
them  to  another  step.  Perhaps  I  should  concur  with 
you  also  in  excluding  the  theory  (not  the  practice)  of 
medicine.  This  is  the  charlatanerie  of  the  body,  as 
the  other  is  of  the  mind.  For  classical  learning  I 
have  ever  been  a  zealous  advocate;  and  in  this,  as 
in  his  theory  of  bleeding  and  mercury,  I  was  ever 
opposed  to  my  friend  Rush,  whom  I  greatly  loved; 
but  who  has  done  much  harm,  in  the  sincerest  per- 
suasion that  he  was  preserving  life  and  happiness  to 
all  around  him.     I  have  not,  however,  carried  so  far 


Correspondence  201 

as  you  do  my  ideas  of  the  importance  of  a  hyper- 
critical knowledge  of  the  Latin  and  Greek  languages. 
I  have  believed  it  sufficient  to  possess  a  substantial 
understanding  of  their  authors. 

In  the  exclusion  of  Anatomy  and  Botany  from  the 
eleventh  grade  of  education,  which  is  that  of  the  man 
of  independent  fortune,  we  separate  in  opinion.  In 
my  view,  no  knowledge  can  be  more  satisfactory  to 
a  man  than  that  of  his  own  frame,  its  parts,  their 
functions  and  actions.  And  Botany  I  rank  with  the 
most  valuable  sciences,  whether  we  consider  its  sub- 
jects as  furnishing  the  principal  subsistence  of  life  to 
man  and  beast,  delicious  varieties  for  our  tables, 
refreshments  from  our  orchards,  the  adornments  of 
our  flower-borders,  shade  and  perfume  of  our  groves, 
materials  for  our  buildings,  or  medicaments  for  our 
bodies.  To  the  gentleman  it  is  certainly  more  in- 
teresting than  Mineralogy  (which  I  by  no  means, 
however,  undervalue),  and  is  more  at  hand  for  his 
amusement;  and  to  a  country  family  it  constitutes 
a  great  portion  of  their  social  entertainment.  No 
country  gentleman  should  be  without  what  amuses 
every  step  he  takes  into  his  fields. 

I  am  sorry  to  learn  the  fate  of  your  Emporium. 
It  was  adding  fast  to  our  useful  knowledge.  Our 
artists  particularly,  and  our  statesmen,  will  have 
cause  to  regret  it.  But  my  hope  is  that  its  suspen- 
sion will  be  temporary  only ;  and  that  as  soon  as  we 
get  over  the  crisis  of  our  disordered  circulation,  your 
publishers  will  resume  it  among  their  first  enter- 


202  Jefferson's  Works 

prises.  Accept  my  thanks  for  the  benefit  of  your 
ideas  to  our  scheme  of  education,  and  the  assurance 
of  my  constant  esteem  and  respect. 


TO    JAMES    MADISON. 

Monticello,  October  15,  1814. 

Dear  Sir, — I  thank  you  for  the  information  of 
your  letter  of  the  10th.  It  gives,  at  length,  a  fixed 
character  to  our  prospects.  The  war,  undertaken 
on  both  sides,  to  settle  the  questions  of  impressment, 
and  the  orders  of  council,  now  that  these  are  done 
away  by  events,  is  declared  by  Great  Britain  to  have 
changed  its  object,  and  to  have  become  a  war  of  con- 
quest, to  be  waged  until  she  conquers  from  us  our 
fisheries,  the  province  of  Maine,  the  lakes,  States  and 
territories  north  of  the  Ohio,  and  the  navigation  of 
the  Mississippi;  in  other  words,  till  she  reduces  us 
to  unconditional  submission.  On  our  part,  then,  we 
ought  to  propose,  as  a  counterchange  of  object,  the 
establishment  of  the  meridian  of  the  mouth  of  the 
Sorel  northwardly,  as  the  western  boundary  of  all 
her  possessions.  Two  measures  will  enable  us  to 
effect  it,  and  without  these,  we  cannot  even  defend 
ourselves.  1.  To  organize  the  militia  into  classes, 
assigning  to  each  class  the  duties  for  which  it  is 
fitted,  (which,  had  it  been  done  when  proposed, 
years  ago,  would  have  prevented  all  our  misfor- 
tunes,) abolishing  by  a  declaratory  law  the  doubts 
which  abstract  scruples  in  some,  and  cowardice  and 


Correspondence  203 

treachery  in  others,  have  conjured  up  about  passing 
imaginary  lines,  and  limiting,  at  the  same  time, 
their  services  to  the  contiguous  provinces  of  the 
enemy.  The  2d  is  the  ways  and  means.  You 
have  seen  my  ideas  on  this  subject,  and  I  shall  add 
nothing  but  a  rectification  of  what  either  I  have  ill 
expressed,  or  you  have  misapprehended.  If  I  have 
used  any  expression  restraining  the  emissions  of 
treasury  notes  to  a  sufficient  medium,  as  your  letter 
seems  to  imply,  I  have  done  it  inadvertently,  and 
under  the  impression  then  possessing  me,  that  the 
war  would  be  very  short.  A  sufficient  medium  would 
not,  on  the  principles  of  any  writer,  exceed  thirty 
millions  of  dollars;  and  on  those  of  some,  not  ten  mil- 
lions. Our  experience  has  proved  it  may  be  run  up 
to  two  or  three  hundred  millions,  without  more  than 
doubling  what  would  be  the  prices  of  things  under  a 
sufficient  medium,  or  say  a  metallic  one,  which  would 
always  keep  itself  at  the  sufficient  point ;  and,  if  they 
rise  to  this  term,  and  the  descent  from  it  be  gradual, 
it  would  not  produce  sensible  revolutions  in  private 
fortunes.  I  shall  be  able  to  explain  my  views  more 
definitely  by  the  use  of  numbers.  Suppose  we  re- 
quire, to  carry  on  the  war,  an  annual  loan  of  twenty 
millions,  then  I  propose  that,  in  the  first  year,  you 
shall  lay  a  tax  of  two  millions,  and  emit  twenty  mil- 
lions of  treasury  notes,  of  a  size  proper  for  circulation, 
and  bearing  no  interest,  to  the  redemption  of  which 
the  proceeds  of  that  tax  shall  be  inviolably  pledged 
and  applied,  by  recalling  annually  their  amount  of 


204  Jefferson's  Works 

the  identical  bills  funded  on  them.  The  second  year 
lay  another  tax  of  two  millions,  and  emit  twenty  mil- 
lions more.  The  third  year  the  same,  and  so  on, 
until  you  have  reached  the  maximum  of  taxes  which 
ought  to  be  imposed.  Let  me  suppose  this  maxi- 
mum to  be  one  dollar  a  head,  or  ten  millions  of  dol- 
lars, merely  as  an  exemplification  more  familiar  than 
would  be  the  algebraical  symbols  %  or  y.  You  would 
reach  this  in  five  years.  The  sixth  year,  then,  still 
emit  twenty  millions  of  treasury  notes,  and  continue 
all  the  taxes  two  years  longer.  The  seventh  year 
twenty  millions  more,  and  continue  the  whole  taxes 
another  two  years;  and  so  on.  Observe,  that 
although  you  emit  ten  millions  of  dollars  a  year,  you 
call  in  ten  millions,  and,  consequently,  add  but  ten 
millions  annually  to  the  circulation.  It  would  be 
in  thirty  years,  then,  prima  facie,  that  you  would 
reach  the  present  circulation  of  three  hundred  mil- 
lions, or  the  ultimate  term  to  which  we  might  adven- 
ture. But  observe,  also,  that  in  that  time  we  shall 
have  become  thirty  millions  of  people,  to  whom  three 
hundred  millions  of  dollars  would  be  no  more  than 
one  hundred  millions  to  us  now;  which  sum  would 
probably  not  have  raised  prices  more  than  fifty  per 
cent,  on  what  may  be  deemed  the  standard,  or  me- 
tallic prices.  This  increased  population  and  con- 
sumption, while  it  would  be  increasing  the  proceeds 
of  the  redemption  tax,  and  lessening  the  balance 
annually  thrown  into  circulation,  would  also  absorb, 
without  saturation,  more  of  the  surplus  medium,  and 


Correspondence  205 

enable  us  to  push  the  same  process  to  a  much  higher 
term,  to  one  which  we  might  safely  call  indefinite, 
because  extending  so  far  beyond  the  limits,  either  in 
time  or  expense,  of  any  supportable  war.  All  we 
should  have  to  do  would  be,  when  the  war  should  be 
ended,  to  leave  the  gradual  extinction  of  these  notes 
to  the  operation  of  the  taxes  pledged  for  their  redemp- 
tion; not  to  suffer  a  dollar  of  paper  to  be  emitted 
either  by  public  or  private  authority,  but  let  the 
metallic  medium  flow  back  into  the  channels  of  cir- 
culation, and  occupy  them  until  another  war  should 
oblige  us  to  recur,  for  its  support,  to  the  same  re- 
source, and  the  same  process,  on  the  circulating 
medium. 

The  citizens  of  a  country  like  ours  will  never  have 
unemployed  capital.  Too  many  enterprises  are 
open,  offering  high  profits,  to  permit  them  to  lend 
their  capitals  on  a  regular  and  moderate  interest. 
They  are  too  enterprising  and  sanguine  themselves 
not  to  believe  they  can  do  better  with  it.  I  never 
did  believe  you  could  have  gone  beyond  a  first  or  a 
second  loan,  not  from  a  want  of  confidence  in  the 
public  faith,  which  is  perfectly  sound,  but  from  a 
want  of  disposable  funds  in  individuals.  The  circu- 
lating fund  is  the  only  one  we  can  ever  command 
with  certainty.  It  is  sufficient  for  all  our  wants ;  and 
the  impossibility  of  even  defending  the  country  with- 
out its  aid  as  a  borrowing  fund,  renders  it  indispen- 
sable that  the  nation  should  take  and  keep  it  in  their 
own  hands,  as  their  exclusive  resource. 


2o6 


Jefferson's  Works 


I  have  trespassed  on  your  time  so  far.  for  explana- 
tion only.  I  will  do  it  no  further  than  by  adding  the 
assurances  of  my  affectionate  and  respectful  attach- 
ment. 


Taxes  and 

Balance  in  circula- 

Years. 

Emissions. 

Redemptions. 

tion  at  end  of  year. 

I8I5 

20 

millions 

2 

millions 

18 

millions 

l8l6 

20 

<  < 

4 

34 

<  < 

l8l7 

20 

<  < 

6 

48 

<  1 

l8l"8 

20 

a 

8 

60 

<  i 

l8l9 

20 

a 

10 

70 

tt 

l820 

20 

tt 

10 

80 

tt 

I82I 

20 

tt 

10 

90 

it 

140 

Suppose  the  war  to  terminate  here,  to  wit,  at  the 
end  of  seven  years,  the  reduction  will  proceed  as  fol- 
lows: 


Taxes  and 

Balance  in  circula- 

Years. 

Redemptions. 

tion  at  end  of  year 

l822 

IO 

millions 

80 

millions 

1823 

IO 

<  < 

70 

tt 

l824 

IO 

<< 

60 

a 

1825 

IO 

<< 

50 

a 

1826 

IO 

n 

40 

*t 

1827 

IO 

1  i 

30 

tt 

1828 

10 

t* 

20 

tt 

1829 

10 

n 

IO 

n 

183O 

10 

a 

O 

tt 

140 


Correspondence   .  207 

This  is  a  tabular  statement  of  the  amount  of  emis- 
sion, taxes,  redemptions,  and  balances  left  in  circula- 
tion every  year,  on  the  plan  above  sketched. 


TO    JAMES    MONROE. 

Monticello,  October  16,   1814. 

Dear  Sir. — Your  letter  of  the  10th  has  been  duly 
received.  The  objects  of  our  contest  being  thus 
entirely  changed  by  England,  we  must  prepare  for 
interminable  war.  To  this  end  we  should  put  our 
house  in  order,  by  providing  men  and  money  to 
indefinite  extent.  The  former  may  be  done  by  class- 
ing our  militia,  and  assigning  each  class  to  the  de- 
scription of  duties  for  which  it  is  fit.  It  is  nonsense 
to  talk  of  regulars.  They  are  not  to  be  had  among 
a  people  so  easy  and  happy  at  home  as  ours.  We 
might  as  well  rely  on  calling  down  an  army  of  angels 
from  heaven.  I  trust  it  is  now  seen  that  the  refusal 
to  class  the  militia,  when  proposed  years  ago,  is  the 
real  source  of  all  our  misfortunes  in  this  war.  The 
other  great  and  indispensable  object  is  to  enter  on 
such  a  system  of  finance,  as  can  be  permanently 
pursued  to  any  length  of  time  whatever.  Let  us  be 
allured  by  no  projects  of  banks,  public  or  private,  or 
ephemeral  expedients,  which,  enabling  us  to  gasp  and 
flounder  a  little  longer,  only  increase,  by  protracting 
the  agonies  of  death. 

Perceiving,  in  a  letter  from  the  President,  that 
either  I  had  ill  expressed  my  ideas  on  a  particular 


208  #  Jefferson's  Works 

part  of  this  subject,  in  the  letters  I  sent  you,  or  he 
had  misapprehended  them,  I  wrote  him  yesterday 
an  explanation ;  and  as  you  have  thought  the  other 
letters  worth  a  perusal,  and  a  communication  to  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  I  enclose  you  a  copy  of 
this,  lest  I  should  be  misunderstood  by  others  also. 
Only  be  so  good  as  to  return  me  the  whole  when  done 
with,  as  I  have  no  other  copies. 

Since  writing  the  letter  now  enclosed,  I  have  seen 
the  report  of  the  committee  of  finance,  proposing 
taxes  to  the  amount  of  twenty  millions.  This  is  a 
dashing  proposition.  But,  if  Congress  pass  it,  I  shall 
consider  it  sufficient  evidence  that  their  constituents 
generally  can  pay  the  tax.  No  man  has  greater  con- 
fidence than  I  have,  in  the  spirit  of  the  people,  to  a 
rational  extent.  Whatever  they  can,  they  will.  But, 
without  either  market  or  medium,  I  know  not  how 
it  is  to  be  done.  All  markets  abroad,  and  all  at 
home,  are  shut  to  us;  so  that  we  have  been  feeding 
our  horses  on  wheat.  Before  the  day  of  collection, 
bank-notes  will  be  but  as  oak  leaves;  and  of  specie, 
there  is  not  within  all  the  United  States,  one-half  of 
the  proposed  amount  of  the  taxes.  I  had  thought 
myself  as  bold  as  was  safe  in  contemplating,  as  pos- 
sible, an  annual  taxation  of  ten  millions,  as  a  fund 
for  emissions  of  treasury  notes;  and,  when  further 
emissions  should  be  necessary,  that  it  would  be  better 
to  enlarge  the  time,  than  the  tax  for  redemption. 
Our  position,  with  respect  to  our  enemy,  and  our 
markets,   distinguishes  us  from  all  other  nations; 


Correspondence  209 

inasmuch,  as  a  state  of  war,  with  us,  annihilates  in 
an  instant  all  our  surplus  produce,  that  on  which  we 
depended  for  many  comforts  of  life.  This  renders 
peculiarly  expedient  the  throwing  a  part  of  the  bur- 
dens of  war  on  times  of  peace  and  commerce.  Still, 
however,  my  hope  is  that  others  see  resources,  which, 
in  my  abstraction  from  the  world,  are  unseen  by  me; 
that  there  will  be  both  market  and  medium  to  meet 
these  taxes,  and  that  there  are  circumstances  which 
render  it  wiser  to  levy  twenty  millions  at  once  on  the 
people,  than  to  obtain  the  same  sum  on  a  tenth  of 
the  tax. 

I  enclose  you  a  letter  from  Colonel  James  Lewis, 
now  of  Tennessee,  who  wishes  to  be  appointed  Indian 
agent,  and  I  do  it  lest  he  should  have  relied  solely 
on  this  channel  of  communication.  You  know  him 
better  than  I  do,  as  he  was  long  your  agent.  I  have 
always  believed  him  an  honest  man,  and  very  good- 
humored  and  accommodating.  Of  his  other  quali- 
fications for  the  office,  you  are  the  best  judge.  Be- 
lieve me  to  be  ever  affectionately  yours. 


TO  DOCTOR  ROBERT  M.  PATTERSON. 

Monticello,  November  23,  1814. 
Dear  Sir, — I  have  heretofore  confided  to  you  my 
wishes  to  retire  from  the  chair  of  the  Philosophical 
Society,  which,  however,  under  the  influence  of  your 
recommendations,  I  have  hitherto  deferred.  I  have 
never,  however,  ceased  from  the  purpose,  and  from 

VOL.  XIV — 14 


2io  Jefferson's  Works 

everything  I  can  observe  or  learn  at  this  distance,  I 
suppose  that  a  new  choice  can  now  be  made  with  as 
much  harmony  as  may  be  expected  at  any  future 
time.  I  send  therefore,  by  this  mail,  my  resignation, 
with  such  entreaties  to  be  omitted  at  the  ensuing 
election  as  I  must  hope  will  be  yielded  to,  for  in  truth 
I  cannot  be  easy  in  holding,  as  a  sinecure,  an  honor  so 
justly  due  to  the  talents  and  services  of  others.  I 
pray  your  friendly  assistance  in  assuring  the  society 
of  the  sentiments  of  affectionate  respect  and  grati- 
tude with  which  I  retire  from  the  high  and  honorable 
relation  in  which  I  have  stood  with  them,  and  that 
you  will  believe  me  to  be  ever  and  affectionately 
yours. 


TO  ROBERT  M.  PATTERSON,  SECRETARY  OF  THE  AMERI- 
CAN PHILOSOPHICAL  SOCIETY. 

Monticello,  November  23,   1814. 

Sir, — I  solicited,  on  a  former  occasion,  permission 
from  the  American  Philosophical  Society,  to  retire 
from  the  honor  of  their  chair,  under  a  consciousness 
that  distance  as  well  as  other  circumstances,  denied 
me  the  power  of  executing  the  duties  of  the  station, 
and  that  those  on  whom  they  devolved  were  best 
entitled  to  the  honors  they  confer.  It  was  the 
pleasure  of  the  society  at  that  time,  that  I  should 
remain  in  their  service,  and  they  have  continued 
since  to  renew  the  same  marks  of  their  partiality. 
Of  these  I  have  been  ever  duly  sensible,  and  now  beg 


Correspondence 


211 


leave  to  return  my  thanks  for  them  with  humble 
gratitude.  Still,  I  have  never  ceased,  nor  can  I 
cease  to  feel  that  I  am  holding  honors  without  yield- 
ing requital,  and  justly  belonging  to  others.  As  the 
period  of  election  is  now  therefore  approaching,  I 
take  the  occasion  of  begging  to  be  withdrawn  from 
the  attention  of  the  society  at  their  ensuing  choice, 
and  to  be  permitted  now  to  resign  the  office  of  presi- 
dent into  their  hands,  which  I  hereby  do.  I  shall 
consider  myself  sufficiently  honored  in  remaining  a 
private  member  of  their  body,  and  shall  ever  avail 
myself  with  zeal  of  every  occasion  which  may  occur, 
of  being  useful  to  them,  retaining  indelibly  a .  pro- 
found sense  of  their  past  favors. 

I  avail  myself  of  the  channel  through  which  the 
last  notification  of  the  pleasure  of  the  society  was 
conveyed  to  me,  to  make  this  communication,  and 
with  the  greater  satisfaction,  as  it  gratifies  me  with 
the  occasion  of  assuring  you  personally  of  my  high 
respect  for  yourself,  and  of  the  interest  I  shall  ever 
take  in  learning  that  your  worth  and  talents  secure 
to  you  the  successes  they  merit. 


TO    WILLIAM    SHORT,    ESQ. 

Monticello,  November  28,  1814. 
Dear  Sir, — Yours  of  October  28th  came  to  hand 
on  the  15th  instant  only.     The  settlement  of  your 
boundary  with  Colonel  Monroe,  is  protracted  by  cir- 
cumstances which  seem  foreign  to  it.     One  would 


212  Jefferson's  Works 

hardly  have  expected  that  the  hostile  expedition  to 
Washington  could  have  had  any  connection  with  an 
operation  one  hundred  miles  distant.  Yet  prevent- 
ing his  attendance,  nothing  could  be  done.  I  am 
satisfied  there  is  no  unwillingness  on  his  part,  but  on 
the  contrary  a  desire  to  have  it  settled;  and  there- 
fore, if  he  should  think  it  indispensable  to  be  present 
at  the  investigation,  as  is  possible,  the  very  first  time 
he  comes  here  I  will  press  him  to  give  a  day  to  the 
decision,  without  regarding  Mr.  Carter's  absence. 
Such  an  occasion  must  certainly  offer  soon  after  the 
fourth  of  March,  when  Congress  rises  of  necessity, 
and  'be  assured  I  will  not  lose  one  possible  moment 
in  effecting  it. 

Although  withdrawn  from  all  anxious  attention  to 
political  concerns,  yet  I  will  state  my  impressions  as 
to  the  present  war,  because  your  letter  leads  to  the 
subject.  The  essential  grounds  of  the  war  were, 
ist,  the  orders  of  council;  and  2d,  the  impressment 
of  our  citizens ;  (for  I  put  out  of  sight  from  the  love 
of  peace  the  multiplied  insults  on  our  government 
and  aggressions  on  our  commerce,  with  which  our 
pouch,  like  the  Indian's,  had  long  been  filled  to  the 
mouth.)  What  immediately  produced  the  declara- 
tion was,  ist,  the  proclamation  of  the  Prince  Regent 
that  he  would  never  repeal  the  orders  of  council 
as  to  us,  until  Bonaparte  should  have  revoked  his 
decrees  as  to  all  other  nations  as  well  as  ours;  and 
2d,  the  declaration  of  his  minister  to  ours  that  no 
arrangement  whatever  could  be  devised,  admissible 


Correspondence  2 13 

in  lieu  of  impressment.  It  was  certainly  a  misfor- 
tune that  they  did  not  know  themselves  at  the  date 
of  this  silly  and  insolent  proclamation,  that  within 
one  month  they  would  repeal  the  orders,  and  that 
we,  at  the  date  of  our  declaration,  could  not  know  of 
the  repeal  which  was  then  going  on  one  thousand 
leagues  distant.  Their  determinations,  as  declared 
by  themselves,  could  alone  guide  us,  and  they  shut 
the  door  on  all  further  negotiation,  throwing  down 
to  us  the  gauntlet  of  war  or  submission  as  the  only 
alternatives.  We  cannot  blame  the  government  for 
choosing  that  of  war,  because  certainly  the  great 
majority  of  the  nation  thought  it  ought  to  be  chosen, 
not  that  they  were  to  gain  by  it  in  dollars  and  cents ; 
all  men  know  that  war  is  a  losing  game  to  both 
parties.  But  they  know  also  that  if  they  do  not 
resist  encroachment  at  some  point,  all  will  be  taken 
from  them,  and  that  more  would  then  be  lost  even 
in  dollars  and  cents  by  submission  than  resistance. 
It  is  the  case  of  giving  a  part  to  save  the  whole,  a 
limb  to  save  life.  It  is  the  melancholy  law  of  human 
societies  to  be  compelled  sometimes  to  choose  a  great 
evil  in  order  to  ward  off  a  greater;  to  deter  their 
neighbors  from  rapine  by  making  it  cost  them  more 
than  honest  gains.  The  enemy  are  accordingly  now 
disgorging  what  they  had  so  ravenously  swallowed. 
The  orders  of  council  had  taken  from  us  near  one 
thousand  vessels. .  Our  list  of  captures  from  them 
is  now  one  thousand  three  hundred,  and,  just  become 
sensible  that  it  is  small  and  not  large  ships  which  gall 


2I4  Jefferson's  Works 

them  most,  we  shall  probably  add  one  thousand 
prizes  a  year  to  their  past  losses.  Again,  supposing 
that,  according  to  the  confession  of  their  own  minis- 
ter in  Parliament,  the  Americans  they  had  impressed 
were  something  short  of  two  thousand,  the  war 
against  us  alone  cannot  cost  them  less  than  twenty 
millions  of  dollars  a  year,  so  that  each  American 
impressed  has  already  cost  them  ten  thousand  dol- 
lars, and  every  year  will  add  five  thousand  dollars 
more  to  his  price.  We,  I  suppose,  expend  more;  but 
had  we  adopted  the  other  alternative  of  submission, 
no  mortal  can  tell  what  the  cost  would  have  been. 
I  consider  the  war  then  as  entirely  justifiable  on  our 
part,  although  I  am  still  sensible  it  is  a  deplorable 
misfortune  to  us.  It  has  arrested  the  course  of  the 
most  remarkable  tide  of  prosperity  any  nation  ever 
experienced,  and  has  closed  such  prospects  of  future 
improvement  as  were  never  before  in  the  view  of  any 
people.  Farewell  all  hopes  of  extinguishing  public 
debt!  farewell  all  visions  of  applying  surpluses  of 
revenue  to  the  improvements  of  peace  rather  than 
the  ravages  of  war.  Our  enemy  has  indeed  the  con- 
solation of  Satan  on  removing  our  first  parents  from 
Paradise:  from  a  peaceable  and  agricultural  nation, 
he  makes  us  a  military  and  manufacturing  one.  We 
shall  indeed  survive  the  conflict.  Breeders  enough 
will  remain  to  carry  on  population.  We  shall  retain 
our  country,  and  rapid  advances  in  the  art  of  war 
will  soon  enable  us  to  beat  our  enemy,  and  probably 
drive  him  from  the  continent.    We  have  men  enough, 


Correspondence  2 1 5 

and  I  am  in  hopes  the  present  session  of  Congress  will 
provide  the  means  of  commanding  their  services. 
But  I  wish  I  could  see  them  get  into  a  better  train 
of  finance.  Their  banking  projects  are  like  dosing 
dropsy  with  more  water.  If  anything  could  revolt 
our  citizens  against  the  war,  it  would  be  the  extrava- 
gance with  which  they  are  about  to  be  taxed.  It  is 
strange  indeed  that  at  this  day,  and  in  a  country 
where  English  proceedings  are  so  familiar,  the  prin- 
ciples and  advantages  of  funding  should  be  neglected, 
and  expedients  resorted  to.  Their  new  bank,  if  not 
abortive  at  its  birth,  will  not  last  through  one  cam- 
paign ;  and  the  taxes  proposed  cannot  be  paid.  How 
can  a  people  who  cannot  get  fifty  cents  a  bushel  for 
their  wheat,  while  they  pay  twelve  dollars  a  bushel 
for  their  salt,  pay  five  times  the  amount  of  taxes  they 
ever  paid  before  ?  Yet  that  will  be  the  case  in  all  the 
States  south  of  the  Potomac.  Our  resources  are 
competent  to  the  maintenance  of  the  war  if  duly 
economized  and  skilfully  employed  in  the  way  of 
anticipation.  However, 'we  must  suffer,  I  suppose, 
from  our  ignorance  in  funding,  as  we  did  from  that 
of  fighting,  until  necessity  teaches  us  both ;  and,  for- 
tunately, our  stamina  are  so  vigorous  as  to  rise  supe- 
rior to  great  mismanagement.  This  year  I  think  we 
shall  have  learnt  how  to  call  forth  our  force,  and  by 
the  next  I  hope  our  funds,  and  even  if  the  state  of 
Europe  should  not  by  that  time  give  the  enemy  em- 
ployment enough  nearer  home,  we  shall  leave  him 
nothing  to  fight  for  here.     These  are  my  views  of  the 


2t6  Jefferson's  Works 

war.  They  embrace  a  great  deal  of  sufferance,  try- 
ing privations,  and  no  benefit  but  that  of  teaching 
our  enemy  that  he  is  never  to  gain  by  wanton  injuries 
on  us.  To  me  this  state  of  things  brings  a  sacrifice 
of  all  tranquillity  and  comfort  through  the  residue  of 
life.  For  although  the  debility  of  age  disables  me 
from  the  services  and  sufferings  of  the  field,  yet,  by 
the  total  annihilation  in  v,alue  of  the  produce  which 
was  to  give  me  subsistence  and  independence,  I  shall 
be  like  Tantalus,  up  to  the  shoulders  in  water,  yet 
dying  with  thirst.  We  can  make  indeed  enough  to 
eat,  drink  and  clothe  ourselves;  but  nothing  for  our 
salt,  iron,  groceries  and  taxes,  which  must  be  paid  in 
money.  For  what  can  we  raise  for  the  market? 
Wheat?  we  can  only  give  it  to  our  horses,  as  we  have 
been  doing  ever  since  harvest.  Tobacco?  it  is  not 
worth  the  pipe  it  is  smoked  in.  Some  say  whiskey ; 
but  all  mankind  must  become  drunkards  to  consume 
it.  But  although  we  feel,  we  shall  not  flinch.  We 
must  consider  now,  as  in  the  Revolutionary  war,  that 
although  the  evils  of  resistance  are  great,  those  of 
submission  would  be  greater.  We  must  meet,  there- 
fore, the  former  as  the  casualties  of  tempests  and 
earthquakes,  and  like  them  necessarily  resulting 
from  the  constitution  of  the  world.  Your  situation, 
my  dear  friend,  is  much  better.  For,  although  I  do 
not  know  with  certainty  the  nature  of  your  invest- 
ments, yet  I  presume  they  are  not  in  banks,  insurance 
companies,  or  any  other  of  those  gossamer  castles. 
If  in  ground-rents,  they  are  solid;  if  in  stock  of  the 


Correspondence  3 17 

United  States,  they  are  equally  so.  I  once  thought 
that  in  the  event  of  a  war  we  should  be  obliged  to 
suspend  paying  the  interest  of  the  public  debt.  But 
a  dozen  years  more  of  experience  and  observation  on 
our  people  and  government,  have  satisfied  me  it  will 
never  be  done.  The  sense  of  the  necessity  of  public 
credit  is  so  universal  and  so  deeply  rooted,  that  no 
other  necessity  will  prevail  against  it ;  and  I  am  glad 
to  see  that  while  the  former  eight  millions  are  stead- 
fastly applied  to  the  sinking  of  the  old  debt,  the  Sen- 
ate have  lately  insisted  on  a  sinking  fund  for  the  new. 
This  is  the  dawn  of  that  improvement  in  the  manage- 
ment of  our  finances  which  I  look  to  for  salvation; 
and  I  trust  that  the  light  will  continue  to  advance, 
and  point  out  their  way  to  our  legislators.  They  will 
soon  see  that  instead  of  taxes  for  the  whole  year's 
expenses,  which  the  people  cannot  pay,  a  tax  to  the 
amount  of  the  interest  and  a  reasonable  portion  of 
the  principal  will  command  the  whole  sum,  and  throw 
a  part  of  the  burdens  of  war  on  times  of  peace  and 
prosperity.  A  sacred  payment  of  interest  is  the  only 
way  to  make  the  most  of  their  resources,  and  a  sense 
of  that  renders  your  income  from  our  funds  more  cer- 
tain than  mine  from  lands.  Some  apprehend  danger 
from  the  defection  of  Massachusetts.  It  is  a  dis- 
agreeable circumstance,  but  not  a  dangerous  one. 
If  they  become  neutral,  we  are  sufficient  for  one 
enemy  without  them,  and  in  fact  we  get  no  aid  from 
them  now.  If  their  administration  determines  to 
join  the  enemy,  their  force  will  be  annihilated  by 


'2 1 8  Jefferson's  Works 

equality  of  division  among  themselves.  Their  fed- 
eralists will  then  call  in  the  English  army,  the  repub- 
licans ours,  and  it  will  only  be  a  transfer  of  the  scene 
of  war  from  Canada  to  Massachusetts;  and  we  can 
get  ten  men  to  go  to  Massachusetts  for  one  who  will 
go  to  Canada.  Every  one,  too,  must  know  that  we 
can  at  any  moment  make  peace  with  England  at  the 
expense  of  the  navigation  and  fisheries  of  Massachu- 
setts. But  it  will  not  come  to  this.  Their  own  peo- 
ple will  put  down  these  f  actionists  as  soon  as  they  see 
the  real  object  of  their  opposition;  and  of  this  Ver- 
mont, New  Hampshire,  and  even  Connecticut  itself, 
furnish  proofs. 

You  intimate  a  possibility  of  your  return  to  France, 
now  that  Bonaparte  is  put  down.  I  do  not  wonder 
at  it;  France,  freed  from  that  monster,  must  again 
become  the  most  agreeable  country  on  earth.  It 
would  be  the  second  choice  of  all  whose  ties  of  family 
and  fortune  give  a  preference  to  some  other  one,  and 
the  first  of  all  not  under  those  ties.  Yet  I  doubt  if 
the  tranquillity  of  France  is  entirely  settled.  If  her 
Pretorian  bands  are  not  furnished  with  employment 
on  her  external  enemies,  I  fear  they  will  recall  the 
old,  or  set  up  some  new  cause. 

God  bless  you  and  preserve  you  in  bodily  health. 
Tranquillity  of  mind  depends  much  on  ourselves,  and 
greatly  on  due  reflection  "how  much  pain  have  cost 
us  the  evils  which  have  never  happened."  Affec- 
tionately adieu. 


Correspondence  2 1 9 

TO    JOHN    MELISH. 

Monticello,  December  10,   1814. 

Dear  Sir, — I  thank  you  for  your  favor  of  the  map 
of  the  sine  qua  non,  enclosed  in  your  letter  of  Novem- 
ber 12th.  It  was  an  excellent  idea;  and  if,  with  the 
documents  distributed  by  Congress,  copies  of  these 
had  been  sent  to  be  posted  up  in  every  street,  on 
every  town-house  and  court-house,  it  would  have 
painted  to  the  eyes  of  those  who  cannot  read  without 
reflecting,  that  reconquest  is  the  ultimate  object  of 
Britain.  The  first  step  towards  this  is  to  set  a  limit 
to  their  expansion  by  taking  from  them  that  noble 
country  which  the  foresight  of  their  fathers  provided 
for  their  multiplying  and  needy  offspring;  to  be  fol- 
lowed up  by  the  compression,  land-board  and  sea- 
board, of  that  omnipotence  which  the  English  fancy 
themselves  now  to  possess.  A  vain  and  foolish 
imagination!  Instead  of  fearing  and  endeavoring 
to  crush  our  prosperity,  had  they  cultivated  it  in 
friendship,  it  might  have  become  a  bulwark  instead 
of  a  breaker  to  them.  There  has  never  been  an 
administration  in  this  country  which  would  not 
gladly  have  met  them  more  than  half  way  on  the 
road  to  an  equal,  a  just  and  solid  connection  of 
friendship  and  intercourse.  And  as  to  repressing 
our  growth,  they  might  as  well  attempt  to  repress 
the  waves  of  the  ocean. 

Your  American  Atlas  is  a  useful  undertaking  for 
those  who  will  live  to  see  and  to  use  it.     To  me  every 


220  Jefferson's  Works 

mail,  in  the  departure  of  some  cotemporary,  brings 
warning  to  be  in  readiness  myself  also,  and  to  cease 
from  new  engagements.  It  is  a  warning  of  no  alarm. 
When  faculty  after  faculty  is  retiring  from  us,  and 
all  the  avenues  to  cheerful  sensation  closing,  sight 
failing  now,  hearing  next,  then  memory,  debility  of 
body,  trepitude  of  mind,  nothing  remaining  but  a 
sickly  vegetation,  with  scarcely  the  relief  of  a  little 
locomotion,  the  last  cannot  be  but  a  coup  de  grace. 

You  propose  to  me  the  preparation  of  a  new  edition 
of  the  Notes  on  Virginia.  I  formerly  entertained 
the  idea,  and  from  time  to  time  noted  some  new 
matter,  which  I  thought  I  would  arrange  at  leisure 
for  a  posthumous  edition.  But  I  now  begin  to  see 
that  it  is  impracticable  for  me.  Nearly  forty  years 
of  additional  experience  in  the  affairs  of  mankind 
would  lead  me  into  dilatations  ending  I  know  not 
where.  That  experience  indeed  has  not  altered  a 
single  principle.  But  it  has  furnished  matter  of 
abundant  development.  Every  moment,  too,  which 
I  have  to  spare  from  my  daily  exercise  and  affairs  is 
engrossed  by  a  correspondence,  the  result  of  the  ex- 
tensive relations  which  my  course  of  life  has  neces- 
sarily occasioned.  And  now  the  act  of  writing  itself 
is  becoming  slow,  laborious  and  irksome.  I  consider, 
therefore,  the  idea  of  preparing  a  new  copy  of  that 
work  as  no  more  to  be  entertained.  The  work  itself 
indeed  is  nothing  more  than  the  measure  of  a  shadow, 
never  stationary,  but  lengthening  as  the  sun  ad- 
vances, and  to  be  taken  anew  from  hour  to  hour.     It 


Correspondence  221 

must  remain,  therefore,  for  some  other  hand  to 
sketch  its  appearance  at  another  epoch,  to  furnish 
another  element  for  calculating  the  course  and 
motion  of  this  member  of  our  federal  system.  For 
this,  every  day  is  adding  new  matter  and  strange 
matter.  That  of  reducing,  by  impulse  instead  of 
attraction,  a  sister  planet  into  its  orbit,  will  be  as 
new  in  our  political  as  in  the  planetary  system.  The 
operation,  however,  will  be  painful  rather  than  diffi- 
cult. The  sound  part  of  our  wandering  star  will 
probably,  by  its  own  internal  energies,  keep  the 
unsound  within  its  course;  or  if  a  foreign  power  is 
called  in,  we  shall  have  to  meet  it  but  so  much  the 
nearer,  and  with  a  more  overwhelming  force.  It 
will  probably  shorten  the  war.  For  I  think  it  prob- 
able that  the  sine  qua  non  was  designedly  put  into 
an  impossible  form  to  give  time  for  the  development 
of  their  plots  and  concerts  with  the  factionists  of 
Boston,  and  that  they  are  holding  off  to  see  the  issue, 
not  of  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  but  that  of  Hartford. 
This  will  begin  a  new  chapter  in  our  history,  and 
with  a  wish  that  you  may  live  in  health  to  see  its 
easy  close,  I  tender  you  the  assurance  of  my  great 
esteem  and  respect. 


TO  MONSIEUR  CORREA  DE  SERRA. 

Monticello,  December  27,   18 14. 
Dear  Sir, — Yours  of  the  9th  has  been  duly  re- 
ceived, and  I  thank  you  for  the  recipe  for  imitating 


222  Jefferson's  Works 

purrolani,  which  I  shall  certainly  try  on  my  cisterns 
the  ensuing  summer.  The  making  them  imperme- 
able to  water  is  of  great  consequence  to  me.  That 
one  chemical  subject  may  follow  another,  I  enclose 
you  two  morsels  of  ore  found  in  this  neighborhood, 
and  supposed  to  be  of  antimony.  I  am  not  certain, 
but  I  believe  both  are  from  the  same  piece,  and 
although  the  very  spot  where  that  was  found  is  not 
known,  yet  it  is  known  to  be  within  a  certain  space 
not  too  large  to  be  minutely  examined,  if  the  material 
be  worth  it.  This  you  can  have  ascertained  in  Phila- 
delphia, where  it  is  best  known  to  the  artists  how 
great  a  desideratum  antimony  is  with  them. 

You  will  have  seen  that  I  resigned  the  chair  of  the 
American  Philosophical  Society,  not  awaiting  your 
further  information  as  to  the  settlement  of  the  gen- 
eral opinion  on  a  successor  without  schism.  I  did  it 
because  the  term  of  election  was  too  near  to  admit 
further  delay. 

On  the  subject  which  entered  incidentally  into  our 
conversation  while  you  were. here,  when  I  came  to 
reflect  maturely,  I  concluded  to  be  silent.  To  do 
wrong  is  a  melancholy  resource,  even  where  retalia- 
tion renders  it  indispensably  necessary.  It  is  better 
to  suffer  much  from  the  scalpings,  the  conflagrations, 
the  rapes  and  rapine  of  savages,  than  to  countenance 
and  strengthen  such  barbarisms  by  retortion.  I 
have  ever  deemed  it  more  honorable  and  more  profit- 
able too,  to  set  a  good  example  than  to  follow  a  bad 
one.     The  good  opinion  of  mankind,  like  the  lever  of 


Correspondence  223 

Archimedes,  with  the  given  fulcrum,  moves  the 
world.  I  therefore  have  never  proposed  or  men- 
tioned the  subject  to  any  one. 

I  have  received  a  letter  from  Mr.  Say,  in  which  he 
expresses  a  thought  of  removing  to  this  country, 
having  discontinued  the  manufactory  in  which  he 
was  engaged;  and  he  asks  information  from  me  of 
the  prices  of  land,  labor,  produce,  etc.,  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Charlottesville,  on  which  he  has  cast  his 
eye.  Its  neighborhood  has  certainly  the  advan- 
tages of  good  soil,  fine  climate,  navigation  to  market, 
and  rational  and  republican  society.  It  would  be  a 
good  enough  position  too  for  the  re-establishment  of 
his  cotton  works,  on  a  moderate  scale,  and  combined 
with  the  small  plan  of  agriculture  to  which  he  seems 
solely  to  look.  But  when  called  on  to  name  prices, 
what  is  to  be  said?  We  have  no  fixed  prices  now. 
Our  dropsical  medium  is  long  since  divested  of  the 
quality  of  a  medium  of  value;  nor  can  I  find  any 
other.  In  most  countries  a  fixed  quantity  of  wheat 
is  perhaps  the  best  permanent  standard.  But  here 
the  blockade  of  our  whole  coast,  preventing  all  access 
to  a  market,  has  depressed  the  price  of  that,  and 
exalted  that  of  other  things,  in  opposite  directions, 
and,  combined  with  the  effects  of  the  paper  deluge, 
leaves  really  no  common  measure  of  values  to  be 
resorted  to.  This  paper,  too,  received  now  without 
confidence,  and  for  momentary  purposes  only,  may, 
in  a  moment,  be  worth  nothing.  I  shall  think  further 
on  the  subject,  and  give  to  Mr.  Say  the  best  informa- 


224  Jefferson's  Works 

tion  in  my  power.  To  myself  such  an  addition  to 
our  rural  society  would  be  inestimable;  and  I  can 
readily  conceive  that  it  may  be  for  the  benefit  of  his 
children  and  their  descendants  to  remove  to  a  coun- 
try where,  for  enterprise  and  talents,  so  many  ave- 
nues are  open  to  fortune  and  fame.  But  whether,  at 
his  time  of  life,  and  with  habits  formed  for  the  state 
of  society  in  France,  a  change  for  one  so  entirely  dif- 
ferent will  be  for  his  personal  happiness,  you  can 
better  judge  than  myself. 

Mr.  Say  will  be  surprised  to  find,  that  forty  years 
after  the  development  of  sound  financial  principles 
by  Adam  Smith  and  the  Economists,  and  a  dozen 
years  after  he  has  given  them  to  us  in  a  corrected, 
dense  and  lucid  form,  there  should  be  so  much  igno- 
rance of  them  in  our  country ;  that  instead  of  funding 
issues  of  paper  on  the  hypothecation  of  specific  re- 
deeming taxes,  (the  only  method  of  anticipating,  in 
a  time  of  war,  the  resources  of  times  of  peace,  tested 
by  the  experience  of  nations,)  we  are  trusting  to 
tricks  of  jugglers  on  the  cards,,  to  the  illusions  of 
banking  schemes  for  the  resources  of  the  war,  and 
for  the  cure  of  colic  to  inflations  of  more  wind.  The 
wise  proposition  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  too,  for 
filling  our  ranks  with  regulars,  and  putting  our 
militia  into  an  effective  form,  seems  to  be  laid  aside. 
I  fear,  therefore,  that,  if  the  war  continues,  it  will 
require  another  year  of  sufferance  for  men  and  money 
to  lead  our  legislators  into  such  a  military  and  finan- 
cial regimen  as  may  carry  us  through  a  war  of  any 


Correspondence  22S 

length.  But  my  hope  is  in  peace.  The  negotiators 
at  Ghent  are  agreed  now  on  every  point  save  one, 
the  demand  and  cession  of  a  portion  of  Maine.  This, 
it  is  well  known,  cannot  be  yielded  by  us,  nor  deemed 
by  them  an  object  for  continuing  a  war  so  expensive, 
so  injurious  to  their  commerce  and  manufactures, 
and  so  odious  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  But  it  is  a 
thread  to  hold  by  until  they  can  hear  the  result,  not 
of  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  but  of  Hartford.  When 
they  shall  know,  as  they  will  know,  that  nothing  will 
be  done  there,  they  will  let  go  their  hold,  and  com- 
plete the  peace  of  the  world,  by  agreeing  to  the  status 
ante  bellum.  Indemnity  for  the  past,  and  security 
for  the  future,  which  was  our  motto  at  the  beginning 
of  this  war,  must  be  adjourned  to  another,  when,  dis- 
armed and  bankrupt,  our  enemy  shall  be  less  able  to 
insult  and  plunder  the  world  with  impunity.  This 
will  be  after  my  time.  One  war,  such  as  that  of  our 
Revolution,  is  enough  for  one  life.  Mine  has  been 
too  much  prolonged  to  make  me  the  witness  of  a 
second,  and  I  hope  for  a  coup  de  grace  before  a  third 
shall  come  upon  us.  If,  indeed,  Europe  has  matters 
to  settle  which  may  reduce  this  hostis  humani  generis 
to  a  state  of  peace  and  moral  order,  I  shall  see  that 
with  pleasure,  and  then  sing,  with  old  Simeon,  nunc 
dimittis  Domine.  For  yourself,  cur  a  ut  valeas,  et  me, 
ut  amaris,  ama. 


VOL.  xiv — 1$ 


226  Jefferson's  Works 


TO    COLONEL   JAMES    MONROE. 

Monticello,  January  i,  1815. 
Dear  Sir, — Your  letters  of  November  the  30th  and 
December  the  21st  have  been  received  with  great 
pleasure.  A  truth  now  and  then  projecting  into 
the  ocean  of  newspaper  lies,  serves  like  headlands 
to  correct  our  course.  Indeed,  my  scepticism  as  to 
everything  I  see  in  a  newspaper,  makes  me  indifferent 
whether  I  ever  see  one.  The  embarrassments  at 
Washington,  in  August  last,  I  expected  would  be 
great  in  any  state  of  things ;  but  they  proved  greater 
than  expected.  I  never  doubted  that  the  plans  of 
the  President  were  wise  and  sufficient.  Their  failure 
we  all  impute,  1,  to  the  insubordinate  temper  of  Arm- 
strong; and  2,  to  the  indecision  of  Winder.  How- 
ever, it  ends  well.  It  mortifies  ourselves,  and  so  may 
check,  perhaps,  the  silly  boasting  spirit  of  our  news- 
papers, and  it  enlists  the  feelings  of  the  world  on  our 
side ;  and  the  advantage  of  public  opinion  is  like  that 
of  the  weather-gauge  in  a  naval  action.  In  Europe, 
the  transient  possession  of  our  capital  can  be  no  dis- 
grace. Nearly  every  capital  there  was  in  possession 
of  its  enemy;  some  often  and  long.  But  diabolical 
as  they  paint  that  enemy,  he  burnt  neither  public  edi- 
fices nor  private  dwellings.  It  was  reserved  for  Eng- 
land to  show  that  Bonaparte,  in  atrocity,  was  an 
infant  to  their  ministers  and  their  generals.  They 
are  taking  his  place  in  the  eyes  of  Europe,  and  have 
turned  into  our  channel  all  its  good  will.     This  will 


Correspondence  227 

be  worth  the  million  of  dollars  the  repairs  of  their 
conflagration  will  cost  us.  I  hope  that  to  preserve 
this  weather-gauge  of  public  opinion,  and  to  counter- 
act the  slanders  and  falsehoods  disseminated  by  the 
English  papers,  the  government  will  make  it  a  stand- 
ing instruction  to  their  ministers  at  foreign  courts, 
to  keep  Europe  truly  informed  of  occurrences  here, 
by  publishing  in  their  papers  the  naked  truth  always, 
whether  favorable  or  unfavorable.  For  they  will 
believe  the  good,  if  we  candidly  tell  them  the  bad 
also. 

But  you  have  two  more  serious  causes  of  uneasi- 
ness ;  the  want  of  men  and  money.  For  the  former, 
nothing  more  wise  or  efficient  could  have  been 
imagined  than  what  you  proposed.  It  would  have 
filled  our  *  ranks  with  regulars,  and  that,  too,  by 
throwing  a  just  share  of  the  burden  on  the  purses 
of  those  whose  persons  are  exempt  either  by  age  or 
office;  and  it  would  have  rendered  our  militia,  like 
those  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  a  nation  of  warriors. 
But  the  go-by  seems  to  have  been  given  to  your 
proposition,  and  longer  sufferance  is  necessary  to 
force  us  to  what  is  best.  We  seem  equally  incor- 
rigible to  our  financial  course.  Although  a  century 
of  British  experience  has  proved  to  what  a  wonderful 
extent  the  funding  on  specific  redeeming  taxes  en- 
ables a  nation  to  anticipate  in  war  the  resources  of 
peace,  and  although  the  other  nations  of  Europe 
have  tried  and  trodden  every  path  of  force  or  folly 
in  fruitless  quest  of  the  same  object,  yet  we  still 


228  Jefferson's  Works 

expect  to  find  in  juggling  tricks  and  banking  dreams, 
that  money  can  be  made  out  of  nothing,  and  in  suf- 
ficient quantity  to  meet  the  expenses  of  a  heavy  war 
by  sea  and  land.  It  is  said,  indeed,  that  money  can- 
not be  borrowed  from  our  merchants  as  from  those  of 
England.  But  it  can  be  borrowed  from  our  people. 
They  will  give  you  all  the  necessaries  of  war  they 
produce,  if,  instead  of  the  bankrupt  trash  they  now 
are  obliged  to  receive  for  want  of  any  other,  you  will 
give  them  a  paper  promise  funded  on  a  specific  pledge, 
and  of  a  size  for  common  circulation.  But  you  say 
the  merchants  will  not  take  this  paper.  What  the 
people  take,  the  merchants  must  take,  or  sell  nothing. 
All  these  doubts  and  fears  prove  only  the  extent  of 
the  dominion  which  the  banking  institutions  have 
obtained  over  the  minds  of  our  citizens,  and  especially 
of  those  inhabiting  cities  or  other  banking  places ;  and 
this  dominion  must  be  broken,  or  it  will  break  us. 
But  here,  as  in  the  other  case,  we  must  make  up  our 
minds  to  suffer  yet  longer  before  we  can  get  right. 
The  misfortune  is,  that  in  the  meantime  we  shall 
plunge  ourselves  in  unextinguishable  debt,  and  entail 
on  our  posterity  an  inheritance  of  eternal  taxes, 
which  will  bring  our  government  and  people  into 
the  condition  of  those  of  England,  a  nation  of  pikes 
and  gudgeons,  the  latter  bred  merely  as  food  for  the 
former.  But,  however  these  difficulties  of  men  and 
money  may  be  disposed  of,  it  is  fortunate  that  neither 
of  them  will  affect  our  war  by  sea.  Privateers  will 
find  their  own  men  and  money,    Let  nothing  be 


Correspondence  229 

spared  to  encourage  them.  They  are  the  dagger 
which  strikes  at  the  heart  of  the  enemy,  their  com- 
merce. Frigates  and  seventy-fours  are  a  sacrifice 
we  must  make,  heavy  as  it  is,  to  the  prejudices  of  a 
part  of  our  citizens.  They  have,  indeed,  rendered 
a  great  moral  service,  which  has  delighted  me  as 
much  as  any  one  in  the  United  States.  But  they 
have  had  no  physical  effect  sensible  to  the  enemy; 
and  now,  while  we  must  fortify  them  in  our  harbors 
and  keep  armies  to  defend  them,  our  privateers  are 
bearding  and  blockading  the  enemy  in  their  own  sea- 
ports. Encourage  them  to  burn  all  their  prizes,  and 
let  the  public  pay  for  them.  They  will  cheat  us 
enormously.  No  matter;  they  will  make  the  mer- 
chants of  England  feel,  and  squeal,  and  cry  out  for 
peace. 

I  much  regretted  your  acceptance  of  the  War  De- 
partment. Not  that  I  know  a  person  who  I  think 
would  better  conduct  it.  But,  conduct  it  ever  so 
wisely,  it  will  be  a  sacrifice  of  yourself.  Were  an 
angel  from  heaven  to  undertake  that  office,  all  our 
miscarriages  would  be  ascribed  to  him.  Raw  troops, 
no  troops,  insubordinate  militia,  want  of  arms,  want 
of  money,  want  of  provisions,  all  will  be  charged  to 
want  of  management  in  you.  I  speak  from  experi- 
ence, when  I  was  Governor  of  Virginia.  Without  a 
regular  in  the  State,  and  scarcely  a  musket  to  put 
into  the  hands  of  the  militia,  invaded  by  two  armies, 
Arnold's  from  the  sea-board  and  Cornwallis'  from 
the  southward,  when  we  were  driven  from  Richmond 


230  Jefferson's  Works 

and  Charlottesville,  and  every  member  of  my  council 
fled  from  their  homes,  it  was  not  the  total  destitution 
of  means,  but  the  mismanagement  of  them,  which, 
in  the  querulous  voice  of  the  public,  caused  all  our 
misfortunes.  It  ended,  indeed,  in  the  capture  of 
the  whole  hostile  force,  but  not  till  means  were 
brought  us  by  General  Washington's  army,  and  the 
French  fleet  and  army.  And  although  the  legisla- 
ture, who  were  personally  intimate  with  both  the 
means  and  measures,  acquitted  me  with  justice  and 
thanks,  yet  General  Lee  has  put  all  those  imputa- 
tions among  the  romances  of  his  historical  novel,  for 
the  amusement  of  credulous  and  uninquisitive  read- 
ers. Not  that  I  have  seen  the  least  disposition  to 
censure  you.  On  the  contrary,  your  conduct  on  the 
attack  of  Washington  has  met  the  praises  of  every 
one,  and  your  plan  for  regulars  and  militia,  their 
approbation.  But  no  campaign  is  as  yet  opened. 
No  Generals  have  yet  an  interest  in  shifting  their 
own  incompetence  on  you,  no  army  agents  their 
rogueries.  I  sincerely  pray  you  may  never  meet 
censure  where  you  will  deserve  most  praise,  and  that 
your  own  happiness  and  prosperity  may  be  the  result 
of  your  patriotic  services. 

Ever  and  affectionately  yours. 


Correspondence  2  3 1 

TO    L.    H.    GIRARDIN. 

Monticello,  January  15,  1815. 

I  have  no  document  respecting  Clarke's  expedition, 
except  the  letters  of  which  you  are  in  possession,  one 
of  which,  I  believe,  gives  some  account  of  it;  nor  do 
I  possess  Imlay's  history  of  Kentucky. 

Of  Mr.  Wythe's  early  history  I  scarcely  know  any- 
thing, except  that  he  was  self-taught;  and  perhaps 
this  might  not  have  been  as  to  the  Latin  language. 
Dr.  Small  was  his  bosom  friend,  and  to  me  as  a  father. 
To  his  enlightened  and  affectionate  guidance  of  my 
studies  while  at  college,  I  am  indebted  for  every- 
thing. 

He  was  Professor  of  Mathematics  at  William  and 
Mary,  and,  for  some  time,  was  in  the  philosophical 
chair.  t  He  first  introduced  into  both  schools  rational 
and  elevated  courses  of  study,  and,  from  an  extraor- 
dinary conjunction  of  eloquence  and  logic,  was 
enabled  to  communicate  them  to  the  students  with 
great  effect.  He  procured  for  me  the  patronage  of 
Mr.  Wythe,  and  both  of  them,  the  attentions  of  Gov- 
ernor Fauquier,  the  ablest  man  who  ever  filled  the 
chair  of  government  here.  They  were  inseparable 
friends,  and  at  their  frequent  dinners  with  the  Gov- 
ernor, (after  his  family  had  returned  to  England,)  he 
admitted  me  always,  to  make  it  a  partte  quarrce.  At 
these  dinners  I  have  heard  more  good  sense,  more 
rational  and  philosophical  conversations,  than  in  all 
my  life  besides.     They  were  truly  Attic  societies. 


232  Jefferson's  Works 

The  Governor  was  musical  also,  and  a  good  performer, 
and  associated  me  with  two  or  three  other  amateurs 
in  his  weekly  concerts.  He  merits  honorable  men- 
tion in  your  history,  if  any  proper  occasion  offers. 
So  also  does  Dabney  Carr,  father  of  Peter  Carr, 
mover  of  the  proposition  of  March,  1773,  for  com- 
mittees of  correspondence,  the  first  fruit  of  which 
was  the  call  of  an  American  Congress.  I  return  your 
two  pamphlets  with  my  thanks,  and  salute  you  with 
esteem  and  respect. 


TO    CHARLES    CLAY,    ESQ. 

Monticello,  January  29,   181 5. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  letter  of  December  20th  was 
four  weeks  on  its  way  to  me.  I  thank  you  for  it; 
for  although  founded  on  a  misconception,  it  is  evi- 
dence of  that  friendly  concern  for  my  peace  and  wel- 
fare, which  I  have  ever  believed  you  to  feel.  Of 
publishing  a  book  on  religion,  my  dear  Sir,  I  never 
had  an  idea.  I  should  as  soon  think  of  writing  for 
the  reformation  of  Bedlam,  as  of  the  world  of  reli- 
gious sects.  Of  these  there  must  be,  at  least,  ten 
thousand,  every  individual  of  every  one  of  which 
believes  all  wrong  but  his  own.  To  undertake  to 
bring  them  all  right,  would  be  like  undertaking, 
single-handed,  to  fell  the  forests  of  America.  Prob- 
ably you  have  heard  me  say  I  had  taken  the  four 
Evangelists,  had  cut  out  from  them  every  text  they 
had  recorded  of  the  moral  precepts  of  Jesus,  and 


Correspondence  233 

arranged  them  in  a  certain  order,  and  although  they 
appeared  but  as  fragments,  yet  fragments  of  the 
most  sublime  edifice  of  morality  which  had  ever 
been  exhibited  to  man.  This  I  have  probably  men- 
tioned to  you,  because  it  is  true ;  and  the  idea  of  its 
publication  may  have  suggested  itself  as  an  inference 
of  your  own  mind.  I  not  only  write  nothing  on  reli- 
gion, but  rarely  permit  myself  to  speak  on  it,  and 
never  but  in  a  reasonable  society.  I  have  probably 
said  more  to  you  than  to  any  other  person,  because 
we  have  had  more  hours  of  conversation  in  duetto  in 
our  meetings  at  the  Forest.  I  abuse  the  priests, 
indeed,  who  have  so  much  abused  the  pure  and  holy 
doctrines  of  their  Master,  and  who  have  laid  me 
under  no  obligations  of  reticence  as  to  the  tricks  of 
their  trade.  The  genuine  system  of  Jesus,  and  the 
artificial  structures  they  have  erected,  to  make  them 
the  instruments  of  wealth,  power,  and  preeminence 
to  themselves,  are  as  distinct  things  in  my  view  as 
light  and  darkness;  and  while  I  have  classed  them 
with  soothsayers  and  necromancers,  I  place  Him 
among  the  greatest  reformers  of  morals,  and  scourges 
of  priest-craft  that  have  ever  existed.  They  felt  Him 
as  such,  and  never  rested  until  they  had  silenced  Him 
by  death.  But  His  heresies  against  Judaism  prevail- 
ing in  the  long  run,  the  priests  have  tacked  about, 
and  rebuilt  upon  them  the  temple  which  He  de- 
stroyed, as  splendid*  as  profitable,  and  as  imposing 
as  that. 

Government,  as  well  as  religion,  has  furnished  its 


2 34  Jefferson's  Works 

schisms,  its  persecutions,  and  its  devices  for  fatten- 
ing idleness  on  the  earnings  of  the  people.  It  has  its 
hierarchy  of  emperors,  kings,  princes,  and  nobles,  as 
that  has  of  popes,  cardinals,  archbishops,  bishops, 
and  priests.  In  short,  cannibals  are  not  to  be  found 
in  the  wilds  of  America  only,  but  are  reveling  on  the 
blood  of  every  living  people.  Turning,  then,  from 
this  loathsome  combination  of  Church  and  State,  and 
weeping  over  the  follies  of  our  fellow  men  who  yield 
themselves  the  willing  dupes  and  drudges  of  these 
mountebanks,  I  consider  reformation  and  redress  as 
desperate,  and  abandon  them  to  the  Quixotism  of 
more  enthusiastic  minds. 

I  have  received  from  Philadelphia,  by  mail,  the 
spectacles  you  had  desired,  and  now  forward  them 
by  the  same  conveyance,  as  equally  safe  and  more 
in  time,  than  were  they  to  await  my  own  going.  In 
a  separate  case  is  a  complete  set  of  glasses,  from 
early  use  to  old  age.  I  think  the  pair  now  in  the 
frames  will  suit  your  eyes,  but  should  they  not,  you 
will  easily  change  them  by  the  screws.  I  believe 
the  largest  numbers  are  the  smallest  magnifiers,  but 
am  not  certain.  Trial  will  readily  ascertain  it.  You 
must  do  me  the  favor  to  accept  them  as  a  token  of 
my  friendship,  and  with  them  the  assurance  of  my 
great  esteem  and  respect. 


Correspondence  235 


TO    GOVERNOR    WILLIAM    PLUMER. 

Monticello,  January  31,   18 15. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  December  30th  has  been 
received.  In  answer  to  your  question  whether  in  the 
course  of  my  reading  I  have  ever  found  that  any  coun- 
try or  even  considerable  island  was  without  inhab- 
itants when  first  discovered?  I  must  answer,  with 
Mr.  Adams,  in  the  negative.  Although  the  fact  is 
curious,  it  had  never  before  struck  my  attention. 
Some  small  islands  have  been  found,  and  are  at  this 
day,  without  inhabitants,  but  this  is  easily  accounted 
for.  Man  being  a  gregarious  animal,  will  not  remain 
but  where  there  can  be  a  sufficient  herd  of  his  own 
kind  to  satisfy  his  social  propensities.  Add  to  this 
that  insulated  settlements,  if  small,  would  be  liable 
to  extirpations  by  occasional  epidemics. 

I  thank  you  'or  the  pamphlet  you  have  been  so 
kind  as  to  send  me,  and  have  read  it  with  much  satis- 
faction. But  with  those  to  whom  it  is  addressed 
Moses  and  the  prophets  have  no  authority  but  when 
administering  to  their  worldly  gain.  The  paradox 
with  me  is  how  any  friend  to  the  union  of  our  country 
can,  in  conscience,  contribute  a  cent  to  the  mainte- 
nance of  any  one  who  perverts  the  sanctity  of  his  desk 
to  the  open  inculcation  of  rebellion,  civil  war,  disso- 
lution of  government,  and  the  miseries  of  anarchy. 
When  England  took  alarm  lest  France,  become  re- 
publican, should  recover  energies  dangerous  to  her, 
she  employed  emissaries  with  means  to  engage  incen- 


2  36  Jefferson's  Works 

diaries  and  anarchists  in  the  disorganization  of  all 
government  there.  These,  assuming  exaggerated 
zeal  for  republican  government  and  the  rights  of  the 
people,  crowded  their  inscriptions  into  the  Jacobin 
societies,  and  overwhelming  by  their  majorities  the 
honest  and  enlightened  patriots  of  the  original  insti- 
tution, distorted  its  objects,  pursued  its  genuine 
founders  under  the  name  of  Brissotines  and  Girond- 
ists unto  death,  intrigued  themselves  into  the 
municipality  of  Paris,  controlled  by  terrorism  the 
proceedings  of  the  legislature,  in  which  they  were 
faithfully  aided  by  their  co-stipendiaries  there,  the 
Dantons  and  Marats  the  Mountain,  murdered  their 
king,  septembrized  the  nation,  and  thus  accom- 
plished their  stipulated  task  of  demolishing  liberty 
and  government  with  it.  England  now  fears  the 
rising  force  of  this  republican  nation,  and  by  the 
same  means  is  endeavoring  to  effect  the  same  course 
of  miseries  and  destruction  here;  it  is  impossible 
where  one  sees  like  courses  of  events  commence,  not 
to  ascribe  them  to  like  causes.  We  know  that  the 
government  of  England,  maintaining  itself  by  cor- 
ruption at  home,  uses  the  same  means  in  other  coun- 
tries of  which  she  has  any  jealousy,  by  subsidizing 
agitators  and  traitors  among  themselves  to  distract 
and  paralyze  them.  She  sufficiently  manifests  that 
she  has  no  disposition  to  spare  ours.  We  see  in  the 
proceedings  of  Massachusetts,  symptoms  which 
plainly  indicate  such  a  course,  and  we  know  as  far 
&s  such  practices  can  §ver  be  dragged  into  light, 


Correspondence  237 

that  she  has  practiced,  and  with  success,  on  leading 
individuals  of  that  State.  Nay  further,  we  see  those 
individuals  acting  on  the  very  plan  which  our  in- 
formation had  warned  us  was  settled  between  the 
parties.  These  elements  of  explanation,  history 
cannot  fail  of  putting  together  in  recording  the  crime 
of  combining  with  the  oppressors  of  the  earth  to 
extinguish  the  last  spark  of  human  hope,  that  here, 
at  length,  will  be  preserved  a  model  of  government, 
securing  to  man  his  rights  and  the  fruits  of  his  labor, 
by  an  organization  constantly  subject  to  his  own 
will.  The  crime  indeed,  if  accomplished,  would 
immortalize  its  perpetrators,  and  their  names  would 
descend  in  history  with  those  of  Robespierre  and  his 
associates,  as  the  guardian  genii  of  despotism,  and 
demons  of  human  liberty.  I  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  all  who  are  acting  with  these  men  are  under  the 
same  motives.  I  know  some  of  them  personally  to 
be  incapable  of  it.  Nor  was  that  the  case  with  the 
disorganizers  and  assassins  of  Paris.  Delusions  there, 
and  party  perversions  here,  furnish  unconscious 
assistants  to  the  hired  actors  in  these  atrocious 
scenes.  But  I  have  never  entertained  one  moment's 
fear  on  this  subject.  The  people  of  this  country 
enjoy  too  much  happiness  to  risk  it  for  nothing; 
and  I  have  never  doubted  that  whenever  the  incen- 
diaries of  Massachusetts  should  venture  openly  to 
raise  the  standard  of  separation,  its  citizens  would 
rise  in  mass  and  do  justice  themselves  to  their  own 
parricides. 


238  Jefferson's  Works 

I  am  glad  to  learn  that  you  persevere  in  your  his- 
torical work.  I  am  sure  it  will  be  executed  on  sound 
principles  of  Americanism,  and  I  hope  your  oppor- 
tunities will  enable  you  to  make  the  abortive  crimes 
of  the  present,  useful  as  a  lesson  for  future  times. 

In  aid  of  your  general  work  I  possess  no  materials 
whatever,  or  they  should  be  entirely  at  your  service ; 
and  I  am  sorry  that  I  have  not  a  single  copy  of  the 
pamphlet  you  ask,  entitled  "A  Summary  View  of 
the  Rights  of  British  America. ' '  It  was  the  draught 
of  an  instruction  which  I  had  meant  to  propose  for 
our  delegates  to  the  first  Congress.  Being  prevented 
by  sickness  from  attending  our  convention,  I  sent  it 
to  them,  and  they  printed  without  adopting  it,  in  the 
hope  that  conciliation  was  not  yet  desperate.  Its 
only  merit  was  in  being  the  first  publication  which 
carried  the  claim  of  our  rights  their  whole  length,  and 
asserted  that  there  was  no  rightful  link  of  connection 
between  us  and  England  but  that  of  being  under  the 
same  king.  Haring's  collection  of  our  statutes  is 
published,  I  know,  as  far  as  the  third  volume,  bring- 
ing them  down  to  1 7 10 ;  and  I  rather  believe  a  fourth 
has  appeared.  One  more  will  probably  complete 
the  work  of  the  Revolution,  and  will  be  to  us  an  ines- 
timable treasure,  as  being  the  only  collection  of  all 
the  acts  of  our  legislatures  now  extant  in  print  or 
manuscript. 

Accept  the  assurance  of  my  great  esteem  and 
respect. 


Correspondence  239 

TO    JOHN    VAUGHAN,    ESQ. 

Monticello,  February  5,   181 5. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  very  friendly  letter  of  January 
4th  is  but  just  received,  and  I  am  much  gratified  by 
the  interest  taken  by  yourself,  and  others  of  my  col- 
leagues of  the  Philosophical  Society,  in  what  con- 
cerned myself  on  withdrawing  from  the  presidency 
of  the  Society.  My  desire  to  do  so  had  been  so  long 
known  to  every  member,  and  the  continuance  of  it 
to  some,  that  I  did  not  suppose  it  can  be  misunder- 
stood by  the  public.  Setting  aside  the  consideration 
of  distance,  which  must  be  obvious  to  all,  nothing  is 
more  incumbent  on  the  old,  than  to  know  when  they 
should  get  out  of  the  way,  and  relinquish  to  younger 
successors  the  honors  they  can  no  longer  earn,  and 
the  duties  they  can  no  longer  perform.  I  rejoice  in 
the  election  of  Dr.  Wistar>,  and  trust  that  his  senior 
standing  in  the  society  will  have  been  considered  as 
a  fair  motive  of  preference  of  those  whose  merits, 
standing  alone,  would  have  justly  entitled  them  to 
the  honor,  and  who,  as  juniors,  according  to  the 
course  of  nature,  may  still  expect  their  turn. 

I  have  received,  with  very  great  pleasure,  the  visit 
of  Mr.  Ticknor,  and  find  him  highly  distinguished  by 
science  and  good  sense.  He  was  accompanied  by 
Mr.  Gray,  son  of  the  late  Lieutenant  Governor  of 
Massachusetts,  of  great  information  and  promise 
also.  It  gives  me  ineffable  comfort  to  see  such  sub- 
jects coming  forward  to  take  charge  of  the  political 


24°  Jefferson's  Works 

and  civil  rights,  the  establishment  of  which  has  cost 
us  such  sacrifices.  Mr.  Ticknor  will  be  fortunate  if 
he  can  get  under  the  wing  of  Mr.  Correa ;  and,  if  the 
happiness  of  Mr.  Correa  requires  (as  I  suppose  it  does) 
his  return  to  Europe,  we  must  sacrifice  it  to  that 
which  his  residence  here  would  have  given  us,  and 
acquiesce  under  the  regrets  which  our  transient 
acquaintance  with  his  worth  cannot  fail  to  embody 
with  our  future  recollections  of  him.  Of  Michaux's 
work  I  possess  three  volumes,  or  rather  cahiers,  one 
on  Oaks,  another  on  Beeches  and  Birches,  and  a  third 
on  Pines. 

I  salute  you  with  great  friendship  and  respect. 


TO    HIS    EXCELLENCY    WILLIAM    H.    CRAWFORD. 

Monticello,  February  n,  1815. 
Dear  Sir, — I  have  to  thank  you  for  your  letter  of 
June  1 6th.  It  presents  those  special  views  of  the 
state  of  things  in  Europe,  for  which  we  look  in  vain 
into  newspapers.  They  tell  us  only  of  the  downfall 
of  Bonaparte,  but  nothing  of  the  temper,  the  views, 
the  secret  workings  of  the  high  agents  in  these  trans- 
actions. Although  we  neither  expected,  nor  wished 
any  act  of  friendship  from  Bonaparte,  and  always 
detested  him  as  a  tyrant,  yet  he  gave  employment 
to  much  of  the  force  of  the  nation  who  was  our  com- 
mon enemy.  So  far,  his  downfall  was  illy  timed  for 
us;  it  gave  to  England  an  opportunity  to  turn  full- 
handed  on  us,  when  we  were  unprepared.     No  mat- 


Correspondence  241 

ter,  we  can  beat  her  on  our  own  soil,  leaving  the  laws 
of  the  ocean  to  be  settled  by  the  maritime  powers  of 
Europe,  who  are  equally  oppressed  and  insulted  by 
the  usurpations  of  England  on  that  element.  Our 
particular  and  separate  grievance  is  only  the  im- 
pressment of  our  citizens.  We  must  sacrifice  the 
last  dollar  and  drop  of  blood  to  rid  us  of  that  badge 
of  slavery;  and  it  must  rest  with  England  alone  to 
say  whether  it  is  worth  eternal  war,  for  eternal  it 
must  be  if  she  holds  to  the  wrong.  She  will  probably 
find  that  the  six  thousand  citizens  she  took  from  us 
by  impressment  have  already  cost  her  ten  thousand 
guineas  a  man,  and  will  cost  her,  in  addition,  the  half 
of  that  annually,  during  the  continuance  of  the  war, 
besides  the  captures  on  the  ocean,  and  the  loss  of  our 
commerce.  She  might  certainly  find  cheaper  means 
of  manning  her  fleet,  or,  if  to  be  manned  at  this  ex- 
pense, her  fleet  will  break  her  down.  The  first  year 
of  our  warfare  by  land  was  disastrous.  Detroit, 
Queenstown,  Frenchtown,  and  Beaver  Dam,  witness 
that.  But  the  second  was  generally  successful,  and 
the  third  entirely  so,  both  by  sea  and  land.  For  I 
set  down  the  coup  de  main  at  Washington  as  more 
disgraceful  to  England  than  to  us.  The  victories  of 
the  last  year  at  Chippewa,  Niagara,  Fort  Erie,  Platts- 
burg,  and  New  Orleans,  the  capture  of  their  two  fleets 
on  Lakes  Erie  and  Champlain,  and  repeated  triumphs 
of  our  frigates  over  hers,  whenever  engaging  with 
equal  force,  show  that  we  have  officers  now  becoming 
prominent,  and  capable  of  making  them  feel  the  supe- 

VOL.    XIV 16 


242  Jefferson's  Works 

riority  of  our  means,  in  a  war  on  our  own  soil.  Our 
means  are  abundant  both  as  to  men  and  money, 
wanting  only  skilful  arrangement;  and  experience 
alone  brings  skill.  As  to  men,  nothing  wiser  can  be 
devised  than  what  the  Secretary  of  War  (Monroe) 
proposed  in  his  report  at  the  commencement  of  Con- 
gress. It  would  have  kept  our  regular  army  always 
of  necessity  full,  and  by  classing  our  militia  accord- 
ing to  ages,  would  have  put  them  into  a  form  ready 
for  whatever  service,  distant  or  at  home,  should  re- 
quire them.  Congress  have  not  adopted  it,  but  their 
next  experiment  will  lead  to  it.  Our  financial  sys- 
tem is,  at  least,  arranged.  The  fatal  possession  of 
the  whole  circulating  medium  by  our  banks,  the 
excess  of  those  institutions,  and  their  present  dis- 
credit, cause  all  our  difficulties.  Treasury  notes  of 
small  as  well  as  high  denomination,  bottomed  on  a 
tax  which  would  redeem  them  in  ten  years,  would 
place  at  our  disposal  the  whole  circulating  medium 
of  the  United  States;  a  fund  of  credit  sufficient  to 
carry  us  through  any  probable  length  of  war.  A 
small  issue  of  such  paper  is  now  commencing.  It 
will  immediately  supersede  the  bank  paper;  nobody 
receiving  that  now  but  for  the  purposes  of  the  day, 
and  never  in  payments  which  are  to  lie  by  for  any 
time.  In  fact,  all  the  banks  having  declared  they 
will  not  give  cash  in  exchange  for  their  own  notes, 
these  circulate  merely  because  there  is  no  other 
medium  of  exchange.  As  soon  as  the  treasury  notes 
get  into  circulation,  the  others  will  cease  to  hold  any 


Correspondence  243 

competition  with  them.  I  trust  that  another  year 
will  confirm  this  experiment,  and  restore  this  fund 
to  the  public,  who  ought  never  more  to  permit  its 
being  filched  from  them  by  private  speculators  and 
disorganizers  of  the  circulation. 

Do  they  send  you  from  Washington  the  Historical 
Register  of  the  United  States ?  It  is  published  there 
annually,  and  gives  a  succinct  and  judicious  history 
of  the  events  of  the  war,  not  too  long  to  be  inserted 
in  the  European  newspapers,  and  would  keep  the 
European  public  truly  informed,  by  correcting  the 
lying  statements  of  the  British  papers.  It  gives,  too, 
all  the  public  documents  of  any  value.  Niles' 
Weekly  Register  is  also  an  excellent  repository  of 
facts  and  documents,  and  has  the  advantage  of 
coming  out  weekly,  whereas  the  other  is  yearly. 

This  will  be  handed  you  by  Mr.  Ticknor,  a  young 
gentleman  of  Boston,  of  high  education  and  great 
promise.  After  going  through  his  studies  here,  he 
goes  to  Europe  to  finish  them,  and  to  see  what  is  to 
be  seen  there.  He  brought  me  high  recommenda- 
tions from  Mr.  Adams  and  others,  and  from  a  stay  of 
some  days  with  me,  I  was  persuaded  he  merited  them, 
as  he  will  whatever  attentions  you  will  be  so  good  as 
to  show  hirn.  I  pray  you  to  accept  the  assurance  of 
my  great  esteem  and  respect. 

P.  S.  February  26th.  On  the  day  of  the  date  of 
this  letter  the  news  of  peace  reached  Washington, 
and  this  place  two  days  after.     I  am  glad  of  it, 


244  Jefferson's  Works 

although  no  provision  being  made  against  the  im- 
pressment of  our  seamen,  it  is  in  fact  but  an  armis- 
tice, to  be  terminated  by  the  first  act  of  impressment 
committed  on  an  American  citizen.  It  may  be 
thought  that  useless  blood  was  spilt  at  New  Orleans, 
after  the  treaty  of  peace  had  been  actually  signed 
and  ratified.  I  think  it  had  many  valuable  uses. 
It  proved  the  fidelity  of  the  Orleanese  to  the  United 
States.  It  proved  that  New  Orleans  can  be  defended 
both  by  land  and  water;  that  the  western  country 
will  fly  to  its  relief  (of  which  ourselves  had  doubted 
before) ;  that  our  militia  are  heroes  when  they  have 
heroes  to  lead  them  on;  and  that,  when  unembar- 
rassed by  field  evolutions,  which  they  do  not  under- 
stand, their  skill  in  the  fire-arm,  and  deadly  aim, 
give  them  great  advantages  over  regulars.  What 
nonsense  for  the  mannikin  Prince  Regent  to  talk  of 
their  conquest  of  the  country  east  of  the  Penobscot 
river!  Then,  as  in  the  Revolutionary  war,  their  con- 
quests were  never  more  than  of  the  spot  on  which 
their  army  stood,  never  extending  beyond  the  range 
of  their  cannon  shot.  If  England  is  now  wise  or  just 
enough  to  settle  peaceably  the  question  of  impress- 
ment, the  late  treaty  may  become  one  of  peace,  and 
of  long  peace.  We  owe  to  their  past,  follies  and 
wrongs  the  incalculable  advantage  of  being  made 
independent  of  them  for  every  material  manufac- 
ture. These  have  taken  such  root,  in  our  private 
families  especially,  that  nothing  now  can  ever  extir- 
pate them. 


Correspondence  245 


TO    THE    MARQUIS    DE    LAFAYETTE. 

Monticello,  February  14,   1815. 

My  Dear  Friend, — Your  letter  of  August  the  14th 
has  been  received,  and  read  again  and  again,  with 
extraordinary  pleasure.  It  is  the  first  glimpse  which 
has  been  furnished  me  of  the  interior  workings  of  the 
late  unexpected  but  fortunate  revolution  of  your 
country.  The  newspapers  told  us  only  that  the  great 
beast  was  fallen;  but  what  part  in  this  the  patriots 
acted,  and  what  the  egotists,  whether  the  former 
slept  while  the  latter  were  awake  to  their  own  in- 
terests only,  the  hireling  scribblers  of  the  English 
press  said  little  and  knew  less.  I  see  now  the  morti- 
fying alternative  under  which  the  patriot  there  is 
placed,  of  being  either  silent,  or  disgraced  by  an  asso- 
ciation in  opposition  with  the  remains  of  Bonapart- 
ism.  A  full  measure  of  liberty  is  not  now  perhaps 
to  be  expected  by  your  nation,  nor  am  I  confident 
they  are  prepared  to  preserve  it.  More  than  a  gen- 
eration will  be  requisite,  under  the  administration  of 
reasonable  laws  favoring  the  progress  of  knowledge 
in  the  general  mass  of  the  people,  and  their  habitua- 
tion to  an  independent  security  of  person  and  prop- 
erty, before  they  will  be  capable  of  estimating  the 
value  of  freedom,  and  the  necessity  of  a  sacred  ad- 
herence to  the  principles  on  which  it  rests  for  preser- 
vation. Instead  of  that  liberty  which  takes  root  and 
growth  in  the  progress  of  reason,  if  recovered  by 

mere  force  pr  accident,  it  becomes,  with  m  unpre- 


246  Jefferson's  Works 

pared  people,  a  tyranny  still,  of  the  many,  the  few, 
or  the  one.  Possibly  you  may  remember,  at  the  date 
of  the  jeu  de  paume,  how  earnestly  I  urged  yourself 
and  the  patriots  of  my  acquaintance,  to  enter  then 
into  a  compact  with  the  king,  securing  freedom  of 
religion,  freedom  of  the  press,  trial  by  jury,  habeas 
corpus,  and  a  national  legislature,  all  of  which  it  was 
known  he  would  then  yield,  to  go  home,  and  let  these 
work  on  the  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  the 
people,  until  they  should  have  rendered  them  capable 
of  more,  when  occasions  would  not  fail  to  arise  for 
communicating  to  them  more.  This  was  as  much 
as  I  then  thought  them  able  to  bear,  soberly  and 
usefully  for  themselves.  You  thought  otherwise, 
and  that  the  dose  might  still  be  larger.  And  I  found 
you  were  right;  for  subsequent  events  proved  they 
were  equal  to  the  Constitution  of  1791.  Unfortu- 
nately, some  of  the  most  honest  and  enlightened  of 
our  patriotic  friends,  (but  closet  politicians  merely, 
unpractised  in  the  knowledge  of  man,)  thought  more 
could  still  be  obtained  and  borne.  They  did  not 
weigh  the  hazards  of  a  transition  from  one  form  of 
government  to  another,  the  value  of  what  they  had 
already  rescued  from  those  hazards,  and  might  hold 
in  security  if  they  pleased,  nor  the  imprudence  of 
giving  up  the  certainty  of  such  a  degree  of  liberty, 
under  a  limited  monarch,  for  the  uncertainty  of  a 
little  more  under  the  form  of  a  republic.  You  dif- 
fered from  them.  You  were  for  stopping  there,  and 
for  securing  the   Constitution  which  the   National 


Correspondence  247 

Assembly  had  obtained.  Here,  too,  you  were  right; 
and  from  this  fatal  error  of  the  republicans,  from 
their  separation  from  yourself  and  the  constitution- 
alists, in  their  councils,  flowed  all  the  subsequent  suf- 
ferings and  crimes  of  the  French  nation.  The  hazards 
of  a  second  change  fell  upon  them  by  the  way.  The 
foreigner  gained  time  to  anarchise  by  gold  the  gov- 
ernment he  could  not  overthrow  by  arms,  to  crush 
in  their  own  councils  the  genuine  republicans,  by  the 
fraternal  embraces  of  exaggerated  and  hired  pretend- 
ers, and  to  turn  the  machine  of  Jacobinism  from  the 
change  to  the  destruction  of  order;  and,  in  the  end, 
the  limited  monarchy  they  had  secured  was  ex- 
changed for  the  unprincipled  and  bloody  tyranny 
of  Robespierre,  and  the  equally  unprincipled  and 
maniac  tyranny  of  Bonaparte.  You  are  now  rid  of 
him,  and  I  sincerely  wish  you  may  continue  so.  But 
this  may  depend  on  the  wisdom  and  moderation  of 
the  restored  dynasty.  It  is  for  them  now  to  read  a 
lesson  in  the  fatal  errors  of  the  republicans ;  to  be  con- 
tented with  a  certain  portion  of  power,  secured  by 
formal  compact  with  the  nation,  rather  than,  grasp- 
ing at  more,  hazard  all  upon  uncertainty,  and  risk 
meeting  the  fate  of  their  predecessor,  or  a  renewal 
of  their  own  exile.  We  are  just  informed,  too,  of  an 
example  which  merits,  if  true,  their  most  profound 
contemplation.  The  gazettes  say  that  Ferdinand 
of  Spain  is  dethroned,  and  his  father  re-established 
on  the  basis  of  their  new  Constitution.  This  order 
of  magistrates  must,  therefore,  see,  that  although 


2  48  Jefferson's  Works 

the  attempts  at  reformation  have  not  succeeded  in 
their  whole  length,  and  some  secession  from  the  ulti- 
mate point  has  taken  place,  yet  that  men  have  by  no 
means  fallen  back  to  their  former  passiveness,  but 
on  the  contrary,  that  a  sense  of  their  rights,  and  a 
restlessness  to  obtain  them,  remain  deeply  im- 
pressed on  every  mind,  and,  if  not  quieted  by  reason- 
able relaxations  of  power,  will  break  out  like  a  vol- 
cano on  the  first  occasion,  and  overwhelm  every- 
thing again  in  its  way.  I  always  thought  the  present 
king  an  honest  and  moderate  man;  and  having  no 
issue,  he  is  under  a  motive  the  less  for  yielding  to 
personal  considerations.  I  cannot,  therefore,  but 
hope,  that  the  patriots  in  and  out  of  your  legislature, 
acting  in  phalanx,  but  temperately  and  wisely,  press- 
ing unremittingly  the  principles  omitted  in  the  late 
capitulation  of  the  king,  and  watching  the  occasions 
which  the  course  of  events  will  create,  may  get  those 
principles  engrafted  into  it,  and  sanctioned  by  the 
solemnity  of  a  national  act. 

With  us  the  affairs  of  war  have  taken  the  most 
favorable  turn  which  was  to  be  expected.  Our 
thirty  years  of  peace  had  taken  off,  or  superannu- 
ated, all  our  Revolutionary  officers  of  experience  and 
grade ;  and  our  first  draught  in  the  lottery  of  untried 
characters  had  been  most  unfortunate.  The  deliv- 
ery of  the  fort  and  army  of  Detroit  by  the  traitor 
Hull;  the  disgrace  at  Queenstown,  under  Van  Ren- 
sellaer;  the  massacre  at  French  town  under  Win- 
chester*  and  surrender  of  Boerstler  in  an  open  field 


Correspondence  249 

to  one-third  of  his  own  numbers,  were  the  inauspi- 
cious beginnings  of  the  first  year  of  our  warfare. 
The  second  witnessed  but  the  single  miscarriage 
occasioned  by  the  disagreement  of  Wilkinson  and 
Hampton,  mentioned  in  my  letter  to  you  of  Novem- 
ber the  30th,  18 1 3,  while  it  gave  us  the  capture  of 
York  by  Dearborn  and  Pike;  the  capture  of  Fort 
George  by  Dearborn  also;  the  capture  of  Proctor's 
army  on  the  Thames  by  Harrison,  Shelby  and  John- 
son, and  that  of  the  whole  British  fleet  on  Lake  Erie 
by  Perry.  The  third  year  has  been  a  continued 
series  of  victories,  to  wit:  of  Brown  and  Scott  at 
Chippewa;  of  the  same  at  Niagara;  of  Gaines  over 
Drummond  at  Fort  Erie ;  that  of  Brown  over  Drum- 
mond  at  the  same  place ;  the  capture  of  another  fleet 
on  Lake  Champlain  by  M'Donough ;  the  entire  defeat 
of  their  army  under  Prevost,  on  the  same  day,  by 
M'Comb,  and  recently  their  defeats  at  New  Orleans 
by  Jackson,  Coffee  and  Carroll,  with  the  loss  of  four 
thousand  men  out  of  nine  thousand  and  six  hundred, 
with  their  two  Generals,  Pakenham  and  Gibbs, 
killed,  and  a  third,  Keane,  wounded  mortally,  as  is 
said. 

This  series  of  successes  has  been  tarnished  only  by 
the  conflagrations  at  Washington,  a  coup  de  main 
differing  from  that  at  Richmond,  which  you  remem- 
ber, in  the  Revolutionary  war,  in  the  circumstance 
only,  that  we  had,  in  that  case,  but  forty-eight  hours' 
notice  that  an  enemy  had  arrived  within  our  capes; 
whereas,  at  Washington,  there  was  abundant  pre- 


25°  Jeff  ersori  V  Works 

vious  notice.  The  force  designated  by  the  President 
was  double  of  what  was  necessary;  but  failed,  as  is 
the  general  opinion,  through  the  insubordination  of 
Armstrong,  who  would  never  believe  the  attack  in- 
tended until  it  was  actually  made,  and  the  sluggish- 
ness of  Winder  before  the  occasion,  and  his  indecision 
during  it.  Still,  in  the  end,  the  transaction  has  helped 
rather  than  hurt  us,  by  arousing  the  general  indigna- 
tion of  our  country,  and  by  marking  to  the  world  of 
Europe  the  vandalism  and  brutal  character  of  the 
English  government.  It  has  merely  served  to  im- 
mortalize their  infamy.  And  add  further,  that 
through  the  whole  period  of  the  war,  we  have  beaten 
them  single-handed  at  sea,  and  so  thoroughly  estab- 
lished our  superiority  over  them  with  equal  force, 
that  they  retire  from  that  kind  of  contest,  and  never 
suffer  their  frigates  to  cruise  singly.  The  Endymion 
would  never  have  engaged  the  frigate  President,  but 
knowing  herself  backed  by  three  frigates  and  a  razee, 
who,  though  somewhat  slower  sailers,  would  get  up 
before  she  could  be  taken.  The  disclosure  to  the 
world  of  the  fatal  secret  that  they  can  be  beaten  at 
sea  with  an  equal  force,  the  evidence  furnished  by 
the  military  operations  of  the  last  year  that  experi- 
ence is  rearing  us  officers  who,  when  our  means  shall 
be  fully  under  way,  will  plant  our  standard  on  the 
walls  of  Quebec  and  Halifax,  their  recent  and  signal 
disaster  at  New  Orleans,  and  the  evaporation  of 
their  hopes  from  the  Hartford  convention,  will  prob- 
ably raise  a  clamor  in  the  British  nation,  which  will 


Correspondence  2  5 1 

force  their  ministry  into  peace.  I  say  force  them, 
because,  willingly,  they  would  never  be  at  peace. 
The  British  ministers  find  in  a  state  of  war  rather 
than  of  peace,  by  riding  the  various  contractors,  and 
receiving  douceurs  on  the  vast  expenditures  of  the 
war  supplies,  that  they  recruit  their  broken  fortunes, 
or  make  new  ones,  and  therefore  will  not  make  peace 
as  long  as  by  any  delusions  they  can  keep  the  temper 
of  the  nation  up  to  the  war  point.  They  found  some 
hopes  on  the  state  of  our  finances.  It  is  true  that 
the  excess  of  our  banking  institutions,  and  their 
present  discredit,  have  shut  us  out  from  the  best 
source  of  credit  we  could  ever  command  with  cer- 
tainty. But  the  foundations  of  credit  still  remain 
to  us,  and  need  but  skill  which  experience  will  soon 
produce,  to  marshal  them  into  an  order  which  may 
carry  us  through  any  length  of  war.  But  they  have 
hoped  more  in  their  Hartford  convention.  Their 
fears  of  republican '  France  being  now  done  away, 
they  are  directed  to  republican  America,  and  they 
are  playing  the  same  game  for  disorganization  here, 
which  they  played  in  your  country.  The  Marats, 
the  Dantons  and  Robespierres  of  Massachusetts  are 
in  the  same  pay,  under  the  same  orders,  and  making 
the  same  efforts  to  anarchise  us,  that  their  proto- 
types in  France  did  there. 

I  do  not  say  that  all  who  met  at  Hartford  were 
under  the  same  motives  of  money,  nor  were  those  of 
France.  Some  of  them  are  Outs,  and  wish  to  be 
Ins;    some  the  mere  dupes  of  the  agitators,  or  of 


2S2  Jefferson's  Works 

their  own  party  passions,  while  the  Maratists  alone 
are  in  the  real  secret;  but  they  have  very  different 
materials  to  work  on.  The  yeomanry  of  the  United 
States  are  not  the  canaille  of  Paris.  We  might 
safely  give  them  leave  to  go  through  the  United 
States  recruiting  their  ranks,  and  I  am  satisfied  they 
could  not  raise  one  single  regiment  (gambling  mer- 
chants and  silk-stocking  clerks  excepted)  who  would 
support  them  in  any  effort  to  separate  from  the 
Union.  The  cement  of  this  Union  is  in  the  heart- 
blood  of  every  American.  I  do  not  believe  there  is 
on  earth  a  government  established  on  so  immovable 
a  basis.  Let  them,  in  any  State,  even  in  Massachu- 
setts itself,  raise  the  standard  of  separation,  and  its 
citizens  will  rise  in  mass,  and  do  justice  themselves 
on  their  own  incendiaries.  If  they  could  have  in- 
duced the  government  to  some  effort  of  suppression, 
or  even  to  enter  into  discussion  with  them,  it  would 
have  given  them  some  importance,  have  brought 
them  into  some  notice.  But  they  have  not  been 
able  to  make  themselves  even  a  subject  of  conversa- 
tion, either  of  public  or  private  societies.  A  silent 
contempt  has  been  the  sole  notice  they  excite;  con- 
soled, indeed,  some  of  them,  by  the  palpable  favors 
of  Philip.  Have  then  no  fears  for  us,  my  friend - 
The  grounds  of  these  exist  only  in  English  news- 
papers, edited  or  endowed  by  the  Castlereaghs  or 
the  Cannings,  or  some  other  such  models  of  pure  and 
uncorrupted  virtue.  Their  military  heroes,  by  land 
and  sea,  may  sink  our  oyster  boats,  rob  our  hen 


Correspondence  253 

roosts,  burn  our  negro  huts,  and  run  off.  But  a 
campaign  or  two  more  will  relieve  them  from  further 
trouble  or  expense  in  defending  their  American 
possessions. 

You  once  gave  me  a  copy  of  the  journal  of  your 
campaign  in  Virginia,  in  1781,  which  I  must  have 
lent  to  some  one  of  the  undertakers  to  write  the  his- 
tory of  the  Revolutionary  war,  and  forgot  to  reclaim. 
I  conclude  this,  because  it  is  no  longer  among  my 
papers,  which  I  have  very  diligently  searched  for  it, 
but  in  vain.  An  author  of  real  ability  is  now  writing 
that  part  of  the  history  of  Virginia.  He  does  it  in 
my  neighborhood,  and  I  lay  open  to  him  all  my 
papers.  But  I  possess  none,  nor  has  he  any,  which 
can  enable  him  to  do  justice  to  your  faithful  and 
able  services  in  that  campaign.  If  you  could  be  so 
good  as  to  send  me  another  copy,  by  the  very  first 
vessel  bound  to  any  port  in  the  United  States,  it 
might  be  here  in  time;  for  although  he  expects  to 
begin  to  print  within  a  month  or  two,  yet  you  know 
the  delays  of  these  undertakings.  At  any  rate  it 
might  be  got  in  as  a  supplement.  The  old  Count 
Rochambeau  gave  me  also  his  memoire  of  the  opera- 
tions at  York,  which  is  gone  in  the  same  way,  and  I 
have  no  means  of  applying  to  his  family  for  it.  Per- 
haps you  could  render  them  as  well  as  us,  the  service 
of  procuring  another  copy. 

I  learn,  with  real  sorrow,  the  deaths  of  Monsieur 
and  Madame  de  Tesse.     They  made  an  interesting 

part  in  the  idle  reveries  m  which  I  have  sometime? 


2 54  Jefferson's  Works 

indulged  myself,  of  seeing  all  my  friends  of  Paris 
once  more,  for  a  month  or  two;  a  thing  impossible, 
which,  however,  I  never  permitted  myself  to  despair 
of.  The  regrets,  however,  of  seventy-three  at  the 
loss  of  friends,  may  be  the  less,  as  the  time  is  shorter 
within  which  we  are  to  meet  again,  according  to  the 
creed  of  our  education. 

This  letter  will  be  handed  you  by  Mr.  Ticknor,  a 
young  gentleman  of  Boston,  of  great  erudition,  inde- 
#  fatigable  industry,  and  preparation  for  a  life  of  dis- 
tinction in  his  own  country.  He  passed  a  few  days 
with  me  here,  brought  high  recommendations  from 
Mr.  Adams  and  others,  and  appeared  in  every  respect 
to  merit  them.  He  is  well  worthy  of  those  attentions 
which  you  so  kindly  bestow  on  our  countrymen,  and 
for  those  he  may  receive  I  shall  join  him  in  acknowl- 
edging personal  obligations. 

I  salute  you  with  assurances  of  my  constant  and 
affectionate  friendship  and  respect. 

P.  S.  February  26th.  My  letter  had  not  yet  been 
sealed,  wiien  I  received  news  of  our  peace.  I  am 
glad  of  it,  and  especially  that  we  closed  our  war  with 
the  eclat  of  the  action  at  New  Orleans.  But  I  con- 
sider it  as  an  armistice  only,  because  no  security  is 
provided  against  the  impressment  of  our  seamen. 
While  this  is  unsettled  we  are  in  hostility  of  mind 
with  England,  although  actual  deeds  of  arms  may 
be  suspended  by  a  truce.  If  she  thinks  the  exercise 
of  this  outrage  is  worth  eternal  war,  eternal  war  it 


Correspondence  255 

must  be,  or  extermination  of  the  one  or  the  other 
party.  The  first  act  of  impressment  she  commits  on 
an  American,  will  be  answered  by  reprisal,  or  by  a 
declaration  of  war  here;  and  the  interval  must  be 
merely  a  state  of  preparation  for  it.  In  this  we  have 
much  to  do,  in  further  fortifying  our  seaport  towns, 
providing  military  stores,  classing  and  disciplining 
our  militia,  arranging  our  financial  system,  and  above 
all,  pushing  our  domestic  manufactures,  which  have 
taken  such  root  as  never  again  can  be  shaken.  Once 
more,  God  bless  you. 


TO    MONSIEUR    DUPONT    DE    NEMOURS. 

Monticello,  February  28,   181 5. 

My  Dear  and  Respected  Friend, — My  last  to 
you  was  of  November  29th  and  December  13th,  14th, 
since  which  I  have  received  yours  of  July  14th.  I 
have  to  congratulate  you,  which  I  do  sincerely  on 
having  got  back  from  Robespierre  and  Bonaparte, 
to  your  ante-revolutionary  condition.  You  are  now 
nearly  where  you  were  at  the  jeu  de  paume  on  the 
20th  of  June,  1789.  The  king  would  then  have 
yielded,  by  convention,  freedom  of  religion,  freedom 
of  the  press,  trial  by  jury,  habeas  corpus,  and  a  repre- 
sentative legislature.  These  I  consider  as  the  essen- 
tials constituting  free  government,  and  that  the 
organization  of  the  Executive  is  interesting,  as  it 
may  ensure  wisdom  and  integrity  in  the  first  place, 
but  next  as  it  may  favor  or  endanger  the  preserva- 


256  Jefferson's  Works 

tion  of  these  fundamentals.  Although  I  do  not  think 
the  late  capitulation  of  the  king  quite  equal  to  all 
this,  yet  believing  his  dispositions  to  be  moderate 
and  friendly  to  the  happiness  of  the  people,  and  see- 
ing that  he  is  without  the  bias  of  issue,  I  am  in  hopes 
your  patriots  may,  by  constant  and  prudent  pressure, 
obtain  from  him  what  is  still  wanting  to  give  you  a 
temperate  degree  of  freedom  and  security.  Should 
this  not  be  done,  I  should  really  apprehend  a  relapse 
into  discontents,  which  might  again  let  in  Bonaparte. 
Here,  at  length,  we  have  peace.  But  I  view  it  as 
an  armistice  only,  because  no  provision  is  made 
against  the  practice  of  impressment.  As  this,  then, 
will  revive  in  the  first  moment  of  a  war  in  Europe, 
its  revival  will  be  a  declaration  of  war  here.  Our 
whole  business,  in  the  meantime,  ought  to  be  a  sedu- 
lous preparation  for  it,  fortifying  our  seaports,  filling 
our  magazines,  classing  and  disciplining  our  militia, 
forming  officers,  and  above  all,  establishing  a  sound 
system  of  finance.  You  will  see  by  the  want  of  sys- 
tem in  this  last  department,  and  even  the  want  of 
principles,  how  much  we  are  in  arrears  in  that  science. 
With  sufficient  means  in  the  hands  of  our  citizens, 
and  sufficient  will  to  bestow  them  on  the  govern- 
ment, we  are  floundering  in  expedients  equally  un- 
productive and  ruinous;  and  proving  how  little  are 
understood  here  those  sound  principles  of  political 
economy  first  developed  by  the  economists,  since 
commented  and  dilated  by  Smith,  Say,  yourself,  and 
the  luminous  reviewer  of  Montesquieu.     I  have  been 


Correspondence  *57 

endeavoring  to  get  the  able  paper  on  this  subject, 
which  you  addressed  to  me  in  July,  18 10,  and  en- 
larged in  a  copy  received  the  last  year,  translated 
and  printed  here,  in  order  to  draw  the  attention  of 
our  citizens  to  this  subject;  but  have  not  as  yet  suc- 
ceeded. Our  printers  are  enterprising  only  in  novels 
and  light  reading.  The  readers  of  works  of  science, 
although  in  considerable  number,  are  so  sparse  in 
their  situations,  that  such  works  are  of  slow  circula- 
tion.    But  I  shall  persevere. 

This  letter  will  be  delivered  to  you  by  Mr.  Ticknor, 
a  young  gentleman  from  Massachusetts,  of  much 
erudition  and  great  merit.  He  has  completed  his 
course  of  law  and  reading,  and,  before  entering  on 
the  practice,  proposes  to  pass  two  or  three  years  in 
seeing  Europe,  and  adding  to  his  stores  of  knowledge 
which  he  can  acquire  there.  Should  he  enter  the 
career  of  politics  in  his  own  country,  he  will  go  far 
in  obtaining  its  honors  and  powers.  He  is  worthy 
of  any  friendly  offices  you  may  be  so  good  as  to 
render  him,  and  to  his  acknowledgments  of  them 
will  be  added  my  own.  By  him  I  send  you  a  copy 
of  the  Review  of  Montesquieu,  from  my  own  shelf, 
the  impression  being,  I  believe,  exhausted  by  the 
late  President  of  the  College  of  Williamsburg  having 
adopted  it  as  the  elementary  book  there.  I  am  per- 
suading the  author  to  permit  me  to  give  his  name  to 
the  public,  and  to  permit  the  original  to  be  printed 
in  Paris.  Although  your  presses,  I  observe,  are  put 
•under  the  leading  strings  of  your  government,  yet 
V9L.  xiv — 17 


258  Jefferson's  Works 

this  is  such  a  work  as  would  have  been  licensed  at 
any  period,  early  or  late,  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XVI 
Surely  the  present  government  will  not  expect  to 
repress  the  progress  of  the  public  mind  further  back 
than  that.  I  salute  you  with  all  veneration  and 
affection. 


TO    JEAN    BATISTE    SAY. 

Monticello,  March  2,  181 5. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  letter  of  June  15th  came  to  hand 
in  December,  and  it  is  not  till  the  ratification  of  our 
peace,  that  a  safe  conveyance  for  an  answer  could  be 
obtained.  I  thank  you  for  the  copy  of  the  new  edi- 
tion of  your  work  which  accompanied  your  letter. 
I  had  considered  it  in  its  first  form  as  superseding 
all  other  works  on  that  subject;  and  shall  set  pro- 
portional value  on  any  improvement  of  it.  I  should 
have  been  happy  to  have  received  your  son  here,  as 
expected  from  your  letter,  on  his  passage  through 
this  State;  and  to  have  given  proofs  through  him 
of  my  respect  for  you.  But  I  live  far  from  the  great 
stage  road  which  forms  the  communication  of  our 
States  from  north  to  south,  and  such  a  deviation  was 
probably  not  admitted  by  his  business.  The  ques- 
tion proposed  in  my  letter  of  February  1st,  1804,  has 
since  become  quite  a  "  question  viseuse. "  I  had  then 
persuaded  myself  that  a  nation,  distant  as  we  are 
from  the  contentions  of  Europe,  avoiding  all  offences  to 
other  powers,  and  not  over-hasty  in  resenting  offence 


Correspondence  259 

from  them,  doing  justice  to  all,  faithfully  fulfilling  the 
duties  of  neutrality,  performing  all  offices  of  amity, 
and  administering  to  their  interests  by  the  benefits 
of  our  commerce,  that  such  a  nation,  I  say,  might 
expect  to  live  in  peace,  and  consider  itself  merely  as 
a  member  of  the  great  family  of  mankind;  that  in 
such  case  it  might  devote  itself  to  whatever  it  could 
best  produce,  secure  of  a  peaceable  exchange  of  sur- 
plus for  what  could  be  more  advantageously  fur- 
nished by  others,  as  takes  place  between  one  count}/ 
and  another  of  France.  But  experience  has  showr 
that  continued  peace  depends  not  merely  on  our  owrn 
justice  and  prudence,  but  on  that  of  others  also\ 
that  when  forced  into  war,  the  interception  of  ex- 
changes which  must  be  made  across  a  wide  ocean, 
becomes  a  powerful  weapon  in  the  hands  of  an  enemy 
domineering  over  that  element,  and  to  the  other  dis. 
tresses  of  war  adds  the  want  of  all  those  necessaries 
for  which  we  have  permitted  ourselves  to  be  depend- 
ent on  others,  even  arms  and  clothing.  This  fact, 
therefore,  solves  the  question  by  reducing  it  to  its 
ultimate  form,  whether  profit  or  preservation  is  the 
first  interest  of  a  State?  We  are  consequently  be- 
come manufacturers  to  a  degree  incredible  to  those 
who  do  not  see  it,  and  who  only  consider  the  short 
period  of  time  during  which  we  have  been  driven  to 
them  by  the  suicidal  policy  of  England.  The  pro- 
hibiting duties  we  lay  on  all  articles  of  foreign  manu- 
facture which  prudence  requires  us  to  establish  at 
home,  with  the  patriotic  determination  of  every  good 


260  Jefferson's  Works 

citizen  to  use  no  foreign  article  which  can  be  made 
within  ourselves,  without  regard  to  difference  of 
price,  secures  us  against  a  relapse  into  foreign  de- 
pendency. And  this  circumstance  may  be  worthy 
of  your  consideration,  should  you  continue  in  the 
disposition  to  emigrate  to  this  country.  Your  manu- 
factory of  cotton,  on  a  moderate  scale  combined  with 
a  farm,  might  be  preferable  to  either  singly,  and  the 
one  or  the  other  might  become  principal,  as  experi- 
ence should  recommend.  Cotton  ready  spun  is  in 
ready  demand,  and  if  woven,  still  more  so. 

I  will  proceed  now  to  answer  the  inquiries  which 
respect  your  views  of  removal;  and  I  am  glad  that, 
in  looking  over  our  map,  your  eye  has  been  attracted 
by  the  village  of  Charlottesville,  because  I  am  better 
acquainted  with  that  than  any  other  portion  of  the 
United  States,  being  within  three  or  four  miles  of  the 
place  of  my  birth  and  residence.  It  is  a  portion  of 
country  which  certainly  possesses  great  advantages. 
Its  soil  is  equal  in  natural  fertility  to  any  high  lands 
I  have  ever  seen;  it  is  red  and  hilly,  very  like  much 
of  the  country  of  Champagne  and  Burgundy,  on  the 
route  of  Sens,  Vermanton,  Vitteaux,  Dijon,  and  along 
the  Cote  to  Chagny,  excellently  adapted  to  wheat, 
maize,  and  clover;  like  all  mountainous  countries 
it  is  perfectly  healthy,  liable  to  no  agues  and  fevers, 
or  to  any  particular  epidemic,  as  is  evidenced  by  the 
robust  constitution  of  its  inhabitants,  and  their  nu- 
merous families.  As  many  instances  of  nonagenaires 
exist  habitually  in  this  neighborhood  as  in  the  same 


Correspondence  26 1 

degree  of  population  anywhere.  Its  temperature 
may  be  considered  as  a  medium  of  that  of  the  United 
French.  States.  "  The  extreme  of  cold  in  ordinary  win- 
=  1 6°  ters  being  about  70  of  Reaumur  below  zero,  and 
=5°  in  the  severest  120,  while  the  ordinary  morn- 
ings are  above  zero.  The  maximum  of  heat 
=96°  in  summer  is  about  2  8°,  of  which  we  have  one 
or  two  instances  in  a  summer  for  a  few  hours. 
About  ten  or  twelve  days  in  July  and  August, 
the  thermometer  rises  for  two  or  three  hours 
=84°  to  about  2 30,  while  the  ordinary  mid-day  heat 
— 8o°  of  those  months  is  about  2 1°,  the  mercury  con- 
tinuing at  that  two  or  three  hours,  and  falling 
=70°  in  the  evening  to  about  170.  White  frosts 
commence  about  the  middle  of  October,  tender  vege- 
tables are  in  danger  from  them  till  nearly  the  middle 
of  April.  The  mercury  begins,  about  the  middle  of 
November,  to  be  occasionally  at  the  freezing  point, 
and  ceases  to  be  so  about  the  middle  of  March.  We 
have  of  freezing  nights  about  fifty  in  the  course  of 
the  winter,  but  not  more  than  ten  days  in  which  the 
mercury  does  not  rise  above  the  freezing  point.  Fire 
is  desirable  even  in  close  apartments  whenever  the 
outward  air  is  below  io°,  (=55°  Fahrenheit,)  and 
that  is  the  case  with  us  through  the  day,  one  hundred 
and  thirty-two  days  in  the  year,  and  on  mornings 
and  evenings  sixty-eight  days  more.  So  that  we 
have  constant  fires  five  months,  and  a  little  over  two 
months  more  on  mornings  and  evenings.  Observa- 
tions made  at  Yorktown  in  the  lower  country,  show 


262  Jeff ersoifs^Works 

that  they  need  seven  days  less  of  constant  fires,  and 
thirty-eight  less  of  mornings  and  evenings.  On  an 
average  of  seven  years  I  have  found  our  snows 
amount  in  the  whole  to  fifteen  inches  depth,  and  to 
cover  the  ground  fifteen  days;  these,  with  the  rains, 
give  us  four  feet  of  water  in  the  year.  The  garden 
pea,  which  we  are  now  sowing,  comes  to  table  about 
the  1 2th  of  May;  strawberries  and  cherries  about 
the  same  time;  asparagus  the  ist  of  April.  The  arti- 
choke stands  the  winter  without  cover;  lettuce  and 
endive  with  a  slight  one  of  bushes,  and  often  without 
any;  and  the  fig,  protected  by  a  little  straw,  begins 
to  ripen  in  July;  if  unprotected,  not  till  the  ist  of 
September.  There  is  navigation  for  boats  of  six  tons 
from  Charlottesville  to  Richmond,  the  nearest  tide- 
water, and  principal  market  for  our  produce.  The 
country  is  what  we  call  well  inhabited,  there  being 
in  our  county,  Albemarle,  of  about  seven  hundred 
and  fifty  square  miles,  about  twenty  thousand 
inhabitants,  or  twenty-seven  to  a  square  mile, 
of  whom,  however,  one-half  are  people  of  color, 
either  slaves  or  free.  The  society  is  much  better 
than  is  common  in  country  situations ;  perhaps  there 
is  not  a  better  country  society  in  the  United  States. 
But  do  not  imagine  this  a  Parisian  or  an  academical 
society.  It  consists  of  plain,  honest,  and  rational 
neighbors,  some  of  them  well  informed  and  men  of 
reading,  all  superintending  their  farms,  hospitable 
and  friendly,  and  speaking  nothing  but  English. 
The  manners  of  every  nation  are  the  standard  of 


Correspondence  263 

orthodoxy  within  itself.  But  these  standards  being 
arbitrary,  reasonable  people  in  all  allow  free  tolera- 
tion for  the  manners,  as  for  the  religion  of  others. 
Our  culture  is  of  wheat  for  market,  and  of  maize, 
oats,  peas,  and  clover,  for  the  support  of  the  farm. 
We  reckon  it  a  good  distribution  to  divide  a  farm 
into  three  fields,  putting  one  into  wheat,  half  a  one 
into  maize,  the  other  half  into  oats  or  peas,  and  the 
third  into  clover,  and  to  tend  the  fields  successively 
in  this  rotation.  Some  woodland  in  addition,  is 
always  necessary  to  furnish  fuel,  fences,  and  timber 
for  constructions.  Our  best  farmers  (such  as  Mr. 
Randolph,  my  son-in-law)  get  from  ten  to  twenty 
bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre;  our  worst  (such  as 
myself)  from  six  to  eighteen,  with  little  or  more 
manuring.  The  bushel  of  wheat  is  worth  in  com- 
mon times  about  one  dollar.  The  common  produce 
of  maize  is  from  ten  to  twenty  bushels,  worth  half  a 
dollar  the  bushel,  which  is  of  a  cubic  foot  and  a 
quarter,  or,  more  exactly,  of  two  thousand  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy-eight  cubic  inches.  From  these 
data  you  may  judge  best  for  yourself  of  the  size  of 
the  farm  which  would  suit  your  family:  bearing  in 
mind,  that  while  you  can  be  furnished  by  the  farm 
itself  for  consumption,  with  every  article  it  is  adapted 
to  produce,  the  sale  of  your  wheat  at  market  is  to 
furnish  the  fund  for  all  other  necessary  articles.  I 
will  add  that  both  soil  and  climate  are  admirably 
adapted  to  the  vine,  which  is  the  abundant  natural 
production  of  our  forests,  and  that  you  cannot  bring 


264  Jefferson's  Works 

a  more  valuable  laborer  than  one  acquainted  with 
both  its  culture  and  manipulation  into  wine 

Your  only  inquiry  now  unanswered  is,  the  price 
of  these  lands.  To  answer  this  with  precision,  would 
require  details  too  long  for  a  letter;  the  fact  being, 
that  we  have  no  metallic  measure  of  values  at  pres- 
ent, while  we  are  overwhelmed  with  bank  paper. 
The  depreciation  of  this  swells  nominal  prices,  with- 
out furnishing  any  stable  index  of  real  value.  I  will 
endeavor  briefly  to  give  you  an  idea  of  this  state  of 
things  by  an  outline  of  its  history. 

In  1 78 1  we  had    1  bank,  its  capital  $1,000,000 
179*1 

1794 
1796 
1803 
1804  66  their  amount  of  capital  not  known. 

And  at  this  time  we  have  probably  one  hundred 
banks,  with  capitals  amounting  to  one  hundred  mil- 
lions of  dollars,  on  which  they  are  authorized  by  law 
to  issue  notes  to  three  times  that  amount,  so  that 
our  circulating  medium  may  now  be  estimated  at 
from  two  to  three  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  on  a 
population  of  eight  and  a  half  millions.  The  banks 
were  able,  for  awhile,  to  keep  this  trash  at  par  with 
metallic  money,  or  rather  to  depreciate  the  metals 
to  a  par  with  their  paper,  by  keeping  deposits  of 
cash  sufficient  to  exchange  for  such  of  their  notes 
as  they  were  called  on  to  pay  in  cash.  But  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  war  draining  away  all  our  specie, 


6 

" 

13,135.°°° 

17 

< « 

18,642,000 

24 

tt 

20,472,000 

34 

i> 

29,112,000 

Correspondence  265 

all  these  banks  have  stopped  payment,  but  with  a 
promise  to  resume  specie  exchanges  whenever  cir- 
cumstances shall  produce  a  return  of  the  metals. 
Some  of  the  most  prudent  and  honest  will  possibly 
do  this;  but  the  mass  of  them  never  will  nor  can. 
Yet,  having  no  other  medium,  we  take  their  paper, 
of  necessity,  for  purposes  of  the  instant,  but  never 
to  lay  by  us.  The  government  is  now  issuing  treas- 
ury notes  for  circulation,  bottomed  on  solid  funds, 
and  bearing  interest.  The  banking  confederacy 
(and  the  merchants  bound  to  them  by  their  debts) 
will  endeavor  to  crush  the  credit  of  these  notes ;  but 
the  country  is  eager  for  them,  as  something  they  can 
trust  to,  and  so  soon  as  a  convenient  quantity  of 
them  can  get  into  circulation,  the  bank  notes  die. 
You  may  judge  that,  in  this  state  of  things,  the 
holders  of  bank  notes  will  give  free  prices  for  lands, 
and  that  were  I  to  tell  you  simply  the  present  prices 
of  lands  in  this  medium,  it  would  give  you  no  idea 
on  which  you  could  calculate.  But  I  will  state  to 
you  the  progressive  prices  which  have  been  paid  for 
particular  parcels  of  land  for  some  years  back,  which 
may  enable  you  to  distinguish  between  the  real  in- 
crease of  value  regularly  produced  by  our  advance- 
ment in  population,  wealth,  and  skill,  and  the  bloated 
value  arising  from  the  present  disordered  and  drop- 
sical state  of  our  medium.  There  are  two  tracts  of 
land  adjoining  me,  and  another  not  far  off,  all  of 
excellent  quality,  which  happen  to  have  been  sold 
at  different  epochs  as  follows : 


266  Jefferson's  Works 

One  was  sold  in  1793  for  $4    an  acre,  in  181 2  at  $10,  and  is  now  rated  $16. 
The  2d  "      1786  "      si       "  1803  "     10,        "  "  20 

The  3d  "       1797   "      7         "  1811   "     16,        "  "  20. 

On  the  whole,  however,  I  suppose  we  may  esti- 
mate that  the  steady  annual  rise  of  our  lands  is  in 
a  geometrical  ratio  of  5  per  cent.;  that  were  our 
medium  now  in  a  wholesome  state,  they  might  be 
estimated  at  from  twelve  to  fifteen  dollars  the  acre; 
and  I  may  add,  I  believe  with  correctness,  that  there 
is  not  any  part  of  the  Atlantic  States  where  lands  of 
equal  quality  and  advantages  can  be  had  as  cheap. 
When  sold  with  a  dwelling-house  on  them,  little  addi- 
tional is  generally  asked  for  the  house.  These  build- 
ings are  generally  of  wooden  materials,  and  of  indif- 
ferent structure  and  accommodation.  Most  of  the 
hired  labor  here  is  of  people  of  color,  either  slaves  or 
free.  An  able-bodied  man  has  sixty  dollars  a  year, 
and  is  clothed  and  fed  by  the  employer;  a  woman 
half  that.  White  laborers  may  be  had,  but  they  are 
less  subordinate,  their  wages  higher,  and  their  nour- 
ishment much  more  expensive.  A  good  horse  for 
the  plough  costs  fifty  or  sixty  dollars.  A  draught  ox 
twenty  to  twenty-five  dollars.  A  milch  cow  fifteen 
to  eighteen  dollars.  A  sheep  two  dollars.  Beef  is 
about  five  cents,  mutton  and  pork  seven  cents  the 
pound.  A  turkey  or  goose  fifty  cents  apiece,  a 
chicken  eight  and  one-third  cents;  a  dozen  eggs  the 
same.  Fresh  butter  twenty  to  twenty-five  cents  the 
pound.  And,  to  render  as  full  as  I  can,  the  informa- 
tion which  may  enable  you  to  calculate  for  yourself, 
I  enclose  you  a  Philadelphia  price-current,  giving 


Correspondence  26  7 

the  prices  in  regular  times  of  most  of  the  articles  of 
produce  or  manufacture,  foreign  and  domestic. 

That  it  may  be  for  the  benefit  of  your  children  and 
their  descendants  to  remove  to  a  country  where,  for 
enterprise  and  talents,  so  many  avenues  are  open  to 
fortune  and  fame,  I  have  little  doubt.  But  I  should 
be  afraid  to  affirm  that,  at  your  time  of  life,  and  with 
habits  formed  on  the  state  of  society  in  France,  a 
change  for  one  so  entirely  different  would  be  for  your 
personal  happiness.  Fearful,  therefore,  to  persuade, 
I  shall  add  with  sincere  truth,  that  I  shall  very  highly 
estimate  the  addition  of  such  a  neighbor  to  our 
society,  and  that  there  is  no  service  within  my  power 
which  I  shall  not  render  with  pleasure  and  prompti- 
tude. With  this  assurance  be  pleased  to  accept  that 
of  my  great  esteem  and  respect. 

P.  S.  This  letter  will  be  handed  you  by  Mr.  Tick- 
nor,  a  young  gentleman*  of  Massachusetts,  of  great 
erudition  and  worth,  and  who  will  be  gratified  by 
the  occasion  of  being  presented  to  the  author  of  the 
Traite  d'Economie  Politique. 


TO    FRANCIS    C.    GRAY,    ESQ. 

Monticello,  March  4,   18 15. 

Dear  Sir, — Despatching  to  Mr.  Ticknor  my 
packet  of  letters  for  Paris,  it  occurs  to  me  that  I 
committed  an  error  in  a  matter  of  information  which 
you  asked  of  me  while  here.     It  is  indeed  of  little 


268  Jefferson's  Works 

importance,  yet  as  well  corrected  as  otherwise,  and 
the  rather  as  it  gives  me  an  occasion  of  renewing  my 
respects  to  you.  You  asked  me  in  conversation, 
what  constituted  a  mulatto  by  our  law?  And  I 
believe  I  told  you  four  crossings  with  the  whites.  I 
looked  afterwards  into  our  law,  and  found  it  to  be 
in  these  words:  "  Every  person,  other  than  a  negro, 
of  whose  grandfathers  or  grandmothers  any  one  shall 
have  been  a  negro,  shall  be  deemed  a  mulatto,  and 
so  every  such  person  who  shall  have  one-fourth  part 
or  more  of  negro  blood,  shall  in  like  manner  be 
deemed  a  mulatto;  L.  Virg'a  1792,  December  17: 
the  case  put  in  the  first  member  of  this  paragraph 
of  the  law  is  exempli  gratia.  The  latter  contains  the 
true  canon,  which  is  that  one-fourth  of  negro  blood, 
mixed  with  any  portion  of  white,  constitutes  the 
mulatto.  As  the  issue  has  one-half  of  the  blood  of 
each  parent,  and  the  blood  of  each  of  these  may  be 
made  up  of  a  variety  of  fractional  mixtures,  the  esti- 
mate of  their  compound  in  some  cases  may  be  intri- 
cate ;  it  becomes  a  mathematical  problem  of  the  same 
class  with  those  on  the  mixtures  of  different  liquors 
or  different  metals;  as  in  these,  therefore,  the  alge- 
braical notation  is  the  most  convenient  and  intelli- 
gible. Let  us  express  the  pure  blood  of  the  white 
in  the  capital  letters  of  the  printed  alphabet,  the 
pure  blood  of  the  negro  in  the  small  letters  of  the 
printed  alphabet,  and  any  given  mixture  of  either, 
by  way  of  abridgment  in  MS.  letters. 
Let  the  first  crossing  be  of  a,  pure  negro,  with  A, 


Correspondence  26Q 

pure  white.  The  unit  of  blood  of  the  issue  being 
composed  of  the  half  of  that  of  each  parent,  will  be 

!+-.     Call  it,  for  abbreviation,  h  (half  blood). 

Let  the  second  crossing  be  of  h  and  B,  the  blood 

of  the  issue  will  be  --{ — ,  or  substituting:   for-  its 

2  2'  o  2 

equivalent,  it  will  be  ^  +  ^  +  ^,  call  it  q  (quarteroon) 

being  £  negro  blood. 

Let  the  third  crossing  be  of  q  and  C,  their  offspring 

will  be   -f+  — =  -f-h-g+— -1--^,  call  this  e  (eighth),  who 

having  less  than  \  of  a,  or  of  pure  negro  blood,  to 
wit  \  only,  is  no  longer  a  mulatto,  so  that  a  third 
cross  clears  the  blood. 

From  these  elements  let  us  examine  their  com- 
pounds.    For  example,  let  h  and  q  cohabit,  their  issue 

will    be   -2+*  =  -4  +  -4  +  i  +  ^  +  -4==3i  +  ^  +  -4,  wherein 

we  find  f  of  a,  or  negro  blood. 

Let  h  and  e  cohabit,  their  issue  will  be-  +  -  =  -  + 

7  224 

-+-^+->  +  -s  +  -=-^+  -5  +  -5  +  -,  wherein   4  a  makes 

4       16        16        8         4        16        16         8         4'  10 

still  a  mulatto. 

Let  q  and  e  cohabit,  the  half  of  the  blood  of  each 

Wiiibe  ^+-e=-^+?+vV!+^6+34+3!+2, 

2       2       8       8       4      16       16        8         4        10        16        8         4 

wherein  ^6  of  a  is  no  longer  a  mulatto,  and  thus  may 
every  compound  be  noted  and  summed,  the  sum  of 
the  fractions  composing  the  blood  of  the  issue  being 
always  equal  to  unit.  It  is  understood  in  natural 
history  that  a  fourth  cross  of  one  race  of  animals 
with  another  gives  an  issue  equivalent  for  all  sensible 


2  7°  Jefferson's  Works 

purposes  to  the  original  blood.  Thus  a  Merino  ram 
being  crossed,  first  with  a  country  ewe,  second  with 
his  daughter,  third  with  his  granddaughter,  and 
fourth  with  the  great-granddaughter,  the  last  issue 
is  deemed  pure  Merino,  having  in  fact  but  ~6  of  the 
country  blood.  Our  canon  considers  two  crosses 
with  the  pure  white,  and  a  third  with  any  degree  of 
mixture,  however  small,  as  clearing  the  issue  of  the 
negro  blood.  But  observe,  that  this  does  not  re- 
establish freedom,  which  depends  on  the  condition 
of  the  mother,  the  principle  of  the  civil  law,  partus 
sequitur  ventrem,  being  adopted  here.  But  if  e  be 
emancipated,  he  becomes  a  free  white  man,  and  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses.    So  much  for  this  trifle  by  way  of  correction. 

I  sincerely  congratulate  you  on  the  peace,  and 
more  especially  on  the  close  of  our  war  with  so  much 
eclat.  Our  second  and  third  campaigns  here,  I  trust, 
more  than  redeemed  the  disgraces  of  the  first,  and 
proved  that  although  a  republican  government  is 
slow  to  move,  yet,  when  once  in  motion,  its  momen- 
tum becomes  irresistible;  and  I  am  persuaded  it 
would  have  been  found  so  in  the  last  war,  had  it  con- 
tinued. Experience  had  just  begun  to  elicit  those 
among  our  officers  who  had  talents  for  war,  and 
under  the  guidance  of  these  one  campaign  would 
have  planted  our  standard  on  the  walls  of  Quebec, 
and  another  on  those  of  Halifax.  But  peace  is  better 
for  us  all;  and  if  it  could  be  followed  by  a  cordial 
conciliation  between  us  and  England,  it  would  ensure 


Correspondence  2  7 1 

the  happiness  and  prosperity  of  both.  The  bag  of 
wind,  however,  on  which  they  are  now  riding,  must 
be  suffered  to  blow  out  before  they  will  be  able 
soberly  to  settle  on  their  true  bottom.  If  they  adopt 
a  course  of  friendship  with  us,  the  commerce  of  one 
hundred  millions  of  people,  which  some  now  born 
will  live  to  see  here,  will  maintain  them  forever  as  a 
great  unit  of  the  European  family.  But  if  they  go 
on  checking,  irritating,  injuring  and  hostilizing  us, 
they  will  force  on  us  the  motto  "  Carthago  delenda 
est.'"  And  some  Scipio  Americanus  will  leave  to 
posterity  the  problem  of  conjecturing  where  stood 
once  the  ancient  and  splendid  city  of  London !  Noth- 
ing more  simple  or  certain  than  the  elements  of  this 
circulation.  I  hope  the  good  sense  of  both  parties 
will  concur  in  traveling  rather  the  paths  of  peace, 
of  affection,  and  reciprocations  of  interest.  I  salute 
you  with  sincere  and  friendly  esteem,  and  if  the  hom- 
age offered  to  the  virtues  of  your  father  can  be  accept- 
able to  him,  place  mine  at  his  feet. 


TO    L.    H.    GIRARDIN. 

Monticello,  March  12,   1815. 

I  return  the  three  cahiers,  which  I  have  perused 
with  the  usual  satisfaction.  You  will  find  a  few 
penciled  notes  merely  verbal. 

But  in  one  place  I  have  taken  a  greater  liberty 
than  I  ever  took  before,  or  ever  indeed  had  occasion 
to  take.     It  is  in  the  case  of  Josiah  Philips,  which  I 


272  Jefferson's  Works 

find  strangely  represented  by  Judge  Tucker  and  Mr. 
Edmund  Randolph,  and  very  negligently  vindicated 
by  Mr.  Henry.  That  case  is  personally  known  to 
me,  because  I  was  of  the  legislature  at  the  time,  was 
one  of  those  consulted  by  Mr.  Henry,  and  had  my 
share  in  the  passage  of  the  bill.  I  never  before  saw 
the  observations  of  those  gentlemen,  which  you  quote 
on  this  case,  and  will  now  therefore  briefly  make  some 
strictures  on  them. 

Judge  Tucker,  instead  of  a  definition  of  the  func- 
tions of  bills  of  attainder,  has  given  a  diatribe  against 
their  abuse.  The  occasion  and  proper  office  of  a  bill 
of  attainder  is  this:  When  a  person  charged  with  a 
crime  withdraws  from  justice,  or  resists  it  by  force, 
either  in  his  own  or  a  foreign  country,  no  other  means 
of  bringing  him  to  trial  or  punishment  being  practi- 
cable, a  special  act  is  passed  by  the  legislature 
adapted  to  the  particular  case.  This  prescribes  to 
him  a  sufficient  time  to  appear  and  submit  to  a  trial 
by  his  peers ;  declares  that  his  refusal  to  appear  shall 
be  taken  as  a  confession  of  guilt,  as  in  the  ordinary 
case  of  an  offender  at  the  bar  refusing  to  plead,  and 
pronounces  the  sentence  which  would  have  been  ren- 
dered on  his  confession  or  conviction  in  a  court  of 
law.  No  doubt  that  these  acts  of  attainder  have 
been  abused  in  England  as  instruments  of  vengeance 
by  a  successful  over  a  defeated  party.  But  what 
institution  is  insusceptible  of  abuse  in  wicked  hands? 

Again,  the  judge  says  "the  court  refused  to  pass 
sentence  of  execution  pursuant  to  the  directions  of 


Correspondence  273 

the  act."  The  court  could  not  refuse  this,  because 
it  was  never  proposed  to  them;  and  my  authority 
for  this  assertion  shall  be  presently  given. 

For  the  perversion  of  a  fact  so  intimately  known 
to  himself,  Mr.  Randolph  can  be  excused  only  by  our 
indulgence  for  orators  who,  pressed  by  a  powerful 
adversary,  lose  sight,  in  the  ardor  of  conflict  of  the 
rigorous  accuracies  of  fact,  and  permit  their  imagina- 
tion to  distort  and  colpr  them  to  the  views  of  the 
moment.  He  was  Attorney  General  at  the  time,  and 
told  me  himself,  the  first  time  I  saw  him  after  the 
trial  of  Philips,  that  when  taken  and  delivered  up  to 
justice,  he  had  thought  it  best  to  make  no  use  of  the 
act  of  attainder,  and  to  take  no  measure  under  it; 
that  he  had  indicted  him  at  the  common  law  either 
for  murder  or  robbery  (I  forgot  which  and  whether 
for  both) ;  that  he  was  tried  on  this  indictment  in 
the  ordinary  way,  found  guilty  by  the  jury,  sentenced 
and  executed  under  the  common  law;  a  course  which 
every  one  approves,  because  the  first  object  of  the 
act  of  attainder  was  to  bring  him  to  fair  trial. 
Whether  Mr.  Randolph  was  right  in  this  informa- 
tion to  me,  or  when  in  the  debate  with  Mr.  Henry, 
he  represents  this  atrocious  offender  as  sentenced  and 
executed  under  the  act  of  attainder,  let  the  record 
of  the  case  decide. 

"  Without  being  confronted  with  his  accusers  and 
witnesses,  without  the  privilege  of  calling  for  evi- 
dence in  his  behalf,  he  was  sentenced  to  death,  and 
afterwards    actually   executed."     I    appeal   to   the 

VOL.    XIV — 18 


274  Jefferson's  Works 

universe  to  produce  one  single  instance  from  the  first 
establishment  of  government  in  this  State  to  the 
present  day,  where,  in  a  trial  at  bar,  a  criminal  has 
been  refused  confrontation  with  his  accusers  and 
witnesses,  or  denied  the  privilege  of  calling  for  evi- 
dence in  his  behalf;  had  it  been  done  in  this  case,  I 
would  have  asked  of  the  Attorney  General  why  he 
proposed  or  permitted  it.  But  without  having  seen 
the  record,  I  will  venture  on  the  character  of  our 
courts,  to  deny  that  it  was  done.  But  if  Mr.  Ran- 
dolph meant  only  that  Philips  had  not  these  advan- 
tages on  the  passage  of  the  bill  of  attainder,  how  idle 
to  charge  the  legislature  with  omitting  to  confront 
the  culprit  with  his  witnesses,  when  he  was  standing 
out  in  arms  and  in  defiance  of  their  authority,  and 
their  sentence  was  to  take  effect  only  on  his  own 
refusal  to  come  in  and  be  confronted.  We  must 
either  therefore  consider  this  as  a  mere  hyperbolism 
of  imagination  in  the  heat  of  debate,  or  what  I  should 
rather  believe,  a  defective  statement  by  the  reporter 
of  Mr.  Randolph's  argument.  I  suspect  this  last 
the  rather  because  this  point  in  the  charge  of  Mr. 
Randolph  is  equally  omitted  in  the  defence  of  Mr. 
Henry.  This  gentleman  must  have  known  that 
Philips  was  tried  and  executed  under  the  common 
law,  and  yet,  according  to  his  report,  he  rests  his 
defence  on  a  justification  of  the  attainder  only.  But 
all  who  knew  Mr.  Henry,  know  that  when  at  ease  in 
argument,  he  was  sometimes  careless,  not  giving  him- 
self the  trouble  of  ransacking  either  his  memory  or 


Correspondence  275 

imagination  for  all  the  topics  of  his  subject,  or  his 
audience  that  of  hearing  them.  No  man  on  earth 
knew  better  when  he  had  said  enough  for  his  hearers. 

Mr.  Randolph  charges  us  with  having  read  the  bill 
three  times  in  the  same  day.  I  do  not  remember 
the  fact,  nor  whether  this  was  enforced  on  us  by  the 
urgency  of  the  ravages  of  Philips,  or  of  the  time  at 
which  the  bill  was  introduced.  I  have  some  idea  it 
was  at  or  near  the  close  of  the  session;  the  journals, 
which  1  have  not,  will  ascertain  the  fact. 

After  the  particular  strictures,  I  will  proceed  to 
propose,  1st,  that  the  word  "  substantially,"  page  92, 
1.  s.,  be  changed  for  ''which  has  been  charged  with," 
[subjoining  a  note  of  reference.  1  Tucker's  Blackst. 
Append.,  292.     Debates  of  Virginia  Convention.] 

2.  That  the  whole  of  the  quotations  from  Tucker, 
Randolph  and  Henry,  be  struck  out,  and  instead  of 
the  text  beginning  page  92,  1.  12,  with  the  words 
"bills  of  attainder,  &c,"  to  the  words  "so  often 
merited,"  page  95,  1.  4,  be  inserted  the  following,  to 
wit: 

"This  was  passed  on  the  following  occasion.  A 
certain  Josiah  Philips,  laborer  of  the  parish  of  Lyn- 
haven,  in  the  county  of  Princess  Anne,  a  man  of 
daring  and  ferocious  disposition,  associating  with 
other  individuals  of  a  similar  cast,  spread  terror  and 
desolation  through  the  lower  country,  committing 
murders,  burning  houses,  wasting  farms,  and  per- 
petrating other  enormities,  at  the  bare  mention  of 
which  humanity  shudders.     Every  effort  to  appre- 


276  Jefferson's  Works 

hend  him  proved  abortive.  Strong  in  the  number 
of  his  ruffian  associates,  or  where  force  would  have 
failed  resorting  to  stratagem  and  ambush,  striking 
the  deadly  blow  or  applying  the  fatal  torch  at  the 
midnight  hour,  and  in  those  places  which  their  insu- 
lated situation  left  almost  unprotected,  he  retired 
with  impunity  to  his  secret  haunts,  reeking  with 
blood,  and  loaded  with  plunder.  [So  far  the  text  of 
Mr.  Girardin  is  preserved.]  The  inhabitants  of  the 
counties  which  were  the  theatre  of  his  crimes,  never 
secure  a  moment  by  day  or  by  night,  in  their  fields 
or  their  beds,  sent  representations  of  their  distresses 
to  the  Governor,  claiming  the  public  protection.  He 
consulted  with  some  members  of  the  legislature  then 
sitting,  on  the  best  method  of  proceeding  against  the 
atrocious  offender.  Too  powerful  to  be  arrested  by 
the  sheriff  and  his  posse  comitatus,  it  was  not  doubted 
but  an  armed  force  might  be  sent  to  hunt  and  destroy 
him  and  his  accomplices  in  their  morasses  and  fast- 
nesses wherever  found.  But  the  proceeding  con- 
cluded to  be  most  consonant  with  the  forms  and 
principles  of  our  government,  was  that  the  legisla- 
ture should  pass  an  act  giving  him  a  reasonable  but 
limited  day  to  surrender  himself  to  justice,  and  to 
submit  to  a  trial  by  his  peers.  According  to  the 
laws  of  the  land,  to  consider  a  refusal  as  a  confession 
of  guilt,  and  divesting  him  as  an  outlaw  of  the  char- 
acter of  citizen,  to  pass  on  him  the  sentence  pre- 
scribed by  the  law;  and  the  public  officer  being 
defied,  to  make  every  one  his  deputy,  and  especially 


Correspondence  277 

those  whose  safety  hourly  depended  on  his  destruc- 
tion. The  case  was  laid  before  the  legislature,  the 
proofs  were  ample,  his  outrages  as  notorious  as  those 
of  the  public  enemy,  and  well  known  to  the  members 
of  both  houses  from  those  counties.  No  one  pre- 
tended then  that  the  perpetrator  of  crimes  who  could 
successfully  resist  the  officers  of  justice,  should  be 
protected  in  the  continuance  of  them  by  the  privi- 
leges of  his  citizenship,  and  that  baffling  ordinary 
process,  nothing  extraordinary  could  be  rightfully 
adopted  to  protect  the  citizens  against  him.  No  one 
doubted  that  society  had  a  right  to  erase  from  the 
roll  of  its  members  any  one  who  rendered  his  own 
existence  inconsistent  with  theirs;  to  withdraw 
from  him  the  protection  of  their  laws,  and  to  remove 
hirn  from  among  them  by  exile,  or  even  by  death  if 
necessary.  An  enemy  in  lawful  war,  putting  to 
death  in  cold  blood  the  prisoner  he  has  taken,  au- 
thorizes retaliation,  which  would  be  inflicted  with 
peculiar  justice  on  the  individual  guilty  of  the  deed, 
were  it  to  happen  that  he  should  be  taken.  And 
could  the  murders  and  robberies  of  a  pirate  or  out- 
law entitle  him  to  more  tenderness?  They  passed 
the  law,  therefore,  and  without  opposition.  He  did 
not  come  in  before  the  day  prescribed;  continued 
his  lawless  outrages;  was  afterwards  taken  in  arms, 
but  delivered  over  to  the  ordinary  justice  of  the 
county.  The  Attorney  General  for  the  common- 
wealth, the  immediate  agent  of  the  government, 
waiving  all  appeal  to  the  act  of  attainder,  indicted 


2  78  Jefferson's  Works 

him  at  the  common  law  as  a  murderer  and  robber. 
He  was  arraigned  on  that  indictment  in  the  usual 
forms,  before  a  jury  of  his  vicinage,  and  no  use  what- 
ever made  of  the  act  of  attainder  in  any  part  of  the 
proceedings.  He  pleaded  that  he  was  a  British  sub- 
ject, authorized  to  bear  arms  by  a  commission  from 
Lord  Dunmore ;  that  he  was  therefore  a  mere  prisoner 
of  war,  and  under  the  protection  of  the  law  of  nations. 
The  court  being  of  opinion  that  a  commission  from 
an  enemy  could  not  protect  a  citizen  in  deeds  of  mur- 
der and  robbery,  overruled  his  plea;  he  was  found 
guilty  by  his  jury,  sentenced  by  the  court,  and  exe- 
cuted by  the  ordinary  officer  of  justice,  and  all  accord- 
ing to  the  forms  and  rules  of  the  common  law." 

I  recommend  an  examination  of  the  records  for 
ascertaining  the  facts  of  this  case,  for  although  my 
memory  assures  me  of  the  leading  ones,  I  am  not 
so  certain  in  my  recollection  of  the  details.  I  am 
not  sure  of  the  character  of  the  particular  crimes 
committed  by  Philips,  or  charged  in  his  indictment, 
whether  his  plea  of  alien  enemy  was,  formally  put  in 
and  overruled,  what  were  the  specific  provisions  of 
the  act  of  attainder,  the  urgency  which  caused  it  to 
be  read  three  times  in  one  day,  if  the  fact  were,  etc., 
etc. 


Correspondence  279 

TO    P.    H.    WENDOVER.1 

Monticello,  March  13,  1815. 
Sir, — Your  favor  of  January  the  30th  was  received 
after  long  delay  on  the  road,  and  I  have  to  thank  you 
for  the  volume  of  discourses  which  you  have  been  so 
kind  as  to  send  me.  I  have  gone  over  them  with 
great  satisfaction,  and  concur  with  the  able  preacher 
in  his  estimate  of  the  character  of  the  belligerents  in 
our  late  war,  and  lawfulness  of  defensive  war.  I  con- 
sider the  war,  with  him,  as  "made  on  good  advice/ ' 
that  is,  for  just  causes,  and  its  dispensation  as  provi- 
dential, inasmuch  as  it  has  exercised  our  patriotism 
and  submission  to  order,  has  planted  and  invigorated 
among  us  arts  of  urgent  necessity,  has  manifested  the 
strong  and  the  weak  parts  of  our  republican  institu- 
tions, and  the  excellence  of  a  representative  democ- 
racy compared  with  the  misrule  of  kings,  has  rallied 
the  opinions  of  mankind  to  the  natural  rights  of  ex- 
patriation, and  of  a  common  property  in  the  ocean, 
and  raised  us  to  that  grade  in  the  scale  of  nations 
which  the  bravery  and  liberality  of  our  citizen  sol- 
diers, by  land  and  by  sea,  the  wisdom  of  our  institu- 
tions and  their  observance  of  justice,  entitled  us  to 
in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  All  this  Mr.  McLeod  has 
well  proved,  and  from  these  sources  of  argument 
particularly  which  belong  to  his  profession.  On 
one  question  only  I  differ  from  him,  and  it  is  that 
which  constitutes  the  subject  of  his  first  discourse, 

1  This  is  endorsed  "not  sent." 


280  Jefferson's  Works 

the  right  of  discussing  public  affairs  in  the  pulpit.  I 
add  the  last  words,  because  I  admit  the  right  in 
general  conversation  and  in  writing;  in  which  last 
form  it  has  been  exercised  in  the  valuable  book  you 
have  now  favored  me  with. 

The  mass  of  human  concerns,  moral  and  physical, 
is  so  vast,  the  field  of  knowledge  requisite  for  man 
to  conduct  them  to  the  best  advantage  is  so  exten- 
sive, that  no  human  being  can  acquire  the  whole 
himself,  and  much  less  in  that  degree  necessary  for 
the  instruction  of  others.  It  has  of  necessity,  then, 
been  distributed  into  different  departments,  each  of 
which,  singly,  may  give  occupation  enough  to  the 
whole  time  and  attention  of  a  single  individual. 
Thus  we  have  teachers  of  Languages,  teachers  of 
Mathematics,  of  Natural  Philosophy,  of  Chemistry, 
of  Medicine,  of  Law,  of  History,  of  Government,  etc. 
Religion,  too,  is  a  separate  department,  and  happens 
to  be  the  only  one  deemed  requisite  for  all  men,  how- 
ever high  or  low.  Collections  of  men  associate 
together,  under  the  name  of  congregations,  and 
employ  a  religious  teacher  of  the  particular  sect  of 
opinions  of  which  they  happen  to  be,  and  contribute 
to  make  up  a  stipend  as  a  compensation  for  the 
trouble  of  delivering  them,  at  such  periods  as  they 
agree  on,  lessons  in  the  religion  they  profess.  If 
they  want  instruction  in  other  sciences  or  arts,  they 
apply  to  other  instructors;  and  this  is  generally  the 
business  of  early  life.  But  I  suppose  there  is  not  an 
instance  of  a  single  congregation  which  has  employed 


Correspondence  281 

their  preacher  for  the  mixed  purposes  of  lecturing 
them  from  the  pulpit  in  Chemistry,  in  Medicine,  in 
Law,  in  the  science  and  principles  of  Government,  or 
in  anything  but  Religion  exclusively.  Whenever, 
therefore,  preachers,  instead  of  a  lesson  in  religion, 
put  them  off  with  a  discourse  on  the  Copernican  sys- 
tem, on  chemical  affinities,  on  the  construction  of 
government,  or  the  characters  or  conduct  of  those 
administering  it,  it  is  a  breach  of  contract,  depriving 
their  audience  of  the  kind  of  service  for  which  they 
are  salaried,  and  giving  them,  instead  of  it,  what  they 
did  not  want,  or,  if  wanted,  would  rather  seek  from 
better  sources  in  that  particular  art  or  science.  In 
choosing  our  pastor  we  look  to  his  religious' qualifica- 
tions, without  inquiring  into  his  physical  or  political 
dogmas,  with  which  we  mean  to  have  nothing  to  do. 
I^am  aware  that  arguments  may  be  found,  which  may 
twist  a  thread  of  politics  into  the  cord  of  religious 
duties .  So  may  they  for  every  other  branch  of  human 
art  or  science.  Thus,  for  example,  it  is  a  religious  duty 
to  obey  the  laws  of  our  country ;  the  teacher  of  reli- 
gion, therefore,  must  instruct  us  in  those  laws,  that 
we  may  know  how  to  obey  them.  It  is  a  religious 
duty  to  assist  our  sick  neighbors ;  the  preacher  must, 
therefore,  teach  us  medicine,  that  we  may  do  it  un- 
derstandingly.  It  is  a  religious  duty  to  preserve  our 
own  health;  our  religious  teacher,  then,  must  tell  us 
what  dishes  are  wholesome,  and  give  us  recipes  in 
cookery,  that  we  may  learn  how  to  prepare  them. 
And  so,  ingenuity,  by  generalizing  more  and  more, 


282  Jefferson 's  Works 

may  amalgamate  all  the  branches  of  science  into  any 
one  of  them,  and  the  physician  who  is  paid  to  visit 
the  sick,  may  give  a  sermon  instead  of  medicine,  and 
the  merchant  to  whom  money  is  sent  for  a  hat,  may 
send  a  handkerchief  instead  of  it.  But  notwith- 
standing this  possible  confusion  of  all  sciences  into 
one,  common  sense  draws  lines  between  them  suf- 
ficiently distinct  for  the  general  purposes  of  life,  and 
no  one  is  at  a  loss  to  understand  that  a  recipe  in  medi- 
cine or  cookery,  or  a  demonstration  in  geometry,  is 
not  a  lesson  in  religion.  I  do  not  deny  that  a  con- 
gregation may,  if  they  please,  agree  with  their 
preacher  that  he  shall  instruct  them  in  Medicine 
also,  or  Law,  or  Politics.  Then,  lectures  in  these, 
from  the  pulpit,  become  not  only  a  matter  of  right, 
but  of  duty  also.  But  this  must  be  with  the  con- 
sent of  every  individual;  because  the  association 
being  voluntary,  the  mere  majority  has  no  right  to 
apply  the  contributions  of  t  the  minority  to  purposes 
unspecified  in  the  agreement  of  the  congregation. 
I  agree,  too,  that  on  all  other  occasions,  the  preacher 
has  the  right,  equally  with  every  other  citizen,  to 
express  his  sentiments,  in  speaking  or  writing,  on  the 
subjects  of  Medicine,  Law,  Politics,  etc.,  his  leisure 
time  being  his  own,  and  his  congregation  not  obliged 
to  listen  to  his  conversation  or  to  read  his  writings; 
and  no  one  would  have  regretted  more  than  myself, 
had  any  scruple  as  to  this  right  withheld  from  us  the 
valuable  discourses  which  have  led  to  the  expression 
of  an  opinion  as  to  the  true  limits  of  the  right.     I 


Correspondence  283 

feel  my  portion,  of  indebtment  to  the  reverend  author 
for  the  distinguished  learning,  the  logic  and  the  elo- 
quence with  which  he  has  proved  that  religion,  as 
well  as  reason,  confirms  the  soundness  of  those  prin- 
ciples on  which  our  government  has  been  founded 
and  its  rights  asserted. 

These  are  my  views  on  this  question.  They  are 
in  opposition  to  those  of  the  highly  respected  and 
able  preacher,  and  are,  therefore,  the  more  doubtingly 
offered.  Difference  of  opinion  leads  to  inquiry,  and 
inquiry  to  truth;  and  that,  I  am  sure,  is  the  ulti- 
mate and  sincere  object  of  us  both.  We  both  value 
too  much  the  freedom  of  opinion  sanctioned  by  our 
Constitution,  not  to  cherish  its  exercise  even  where 
in  opposition  to  ourselves. 

Unaccustomed  to  reserve  or  mystery  in  the  expres- 
sion of  my  opinions,  I  have  opened  myself  frankly 
on  a  question  suggested  by  your  letter  and  present. 
And  although  I  have  not  the  honor  of  your  acquaint- 
ance, this  mark  of  attention,  and  still  more  the  senti- 
ments of  esteem  so  kindly  expressed  in  your  letter, 
are  entitled  to  a  confidence  that  observations  not 
intended  for  the  public  will  not  be  ushered  to  their 
notice,  as  has  happened  to  me  sometimes.  Tran- 
quillity, at  my  age,  is  the  balm  of  life.  While  I  know 
I  am  safe  in  the  honor  and  charity  of  a  McLeod,  I  do 
not  wish  to  be  cast  forth  to  the  Marats,  the  Dantons, 
and  the  Robespierres  of  the  priesthood;  I  mean  the 
Parishes,  the  Ogdens,  and  the  Gardiners  of  Massa- 
chusetts. 


284  Jefferson's  Works 

I  pray  you  to  accept  the  assurances  of  my  esteem 
and  respect. 


TO    CESAR    A.    RODNEY. 

Monticello,  March  16,  1815. 
My  Dear  Friend  and  Ancient  Colleague, — 
Your  letter  of  February  the  19  th  has  been  received 
with  very  sincere  pleasure.  It  recalls  to  memory 
the  sociability,  the  friendship,  and  the  harmony  of 
action  which  united  personal  happiness  with  public 
duties,  during  the  portion  of  our  lives  in  which  we 
acted  together.  Indeed,  the  affectionate  harmony 
of»  our  Cabinet  is  among  the  sweetest  of  my  recollec- 
tions. I  have  just  received  a  letter  of  friendship 
from  General  Dearborn.  He  writes  me  that  he  is 
now  retiring  from  every  species  of  public  occupation, 
to  pass  the  remainder  of  life  as  a  private  citizen ;  and 
he  promises  me  a  visit  in  the  course  of  the  summer. 
As  you  hold  out  a  hope  of  the  same  gratification,  if 
chance  or  purpose  could  time  your  visits  together, 
it  would  make  a  real  jubilee.  But  come  as  you  will, 
or  as  you  can,  it  will  always  be  joy  enough  to  me. 
Only  you  must  give  me  a  month's  notice;  because 
I  go  three  or  four  times  a  year  to  a  possession  ninety 
miles  southwestward,  and  am  absent  a  month  at  a 
time,  and  the  mortification  would  be  indelible  of 
losing  such  a  visit  by  a  mistimed  absence.  You  will 
find  me  in  habitual  good  health,  great  contentedness, 
enfeebled  in  body,  impaired  in  memory,  but  without 
decay  in  my  friendships. 


Correspondence  285 

Great,  indeed,  have  been  the  revolutions  in  the 
world,  since  you  and  I  have  had  anything  to  do  with 
it.  To  me  they  have  been  like  the  howlings  of  the 
winter  storm  over  the  battlements,  while  warm  in 
my  bed.  The  unprincipled  tyrant  of  the  land  is 
fallen,  his  power  reduced  to  its  original  nothingness, 
his  person  only  not  yet  in  the  mad-house,  where  it 
ought  always  to  have  been.  His  equally  unprinci- 
pled competitor,  the  tyrant  of  the  ocean,  in  the  mad- 
house indeed,  in  person,  but  his  power  still  stalking 
over  the  deep.  " Quern  Deus  vult  perdere,  prius  de- 
mentat."  The  madness  is  acknowledged;  the  per- 
dition of  course  impending.  Are  we  to  be  the  instru- 
ments? A  friendly,  a  just,  and  a  reasonable  conduct 
on  their  part,  might  make  us  the  main  pillar  of  their 
prosperity  and  existence.  But  their  deep-rooted 
hatred  to  us  seems  to  be  the  means  which  Providence 
permits  to  lead  them  to  their  final  catastrophe. 
"Nullam  enim  in  t  err  is  gent  em  esse,  nullum  infestiorem 
populum,  nomini  Romano"  said  the  General  who 
erased  Capua  from  the  list  of  powers.  What  nour- 
ishment and  support  would  not  England  receive  from 
an  hundred  millions  of  industrious  descendants, 
whom  some  of  her  people  now  born  will  live  to  see 
here?  What  their  energies  are,  she  has  lately  tried. 
And  what  has  she  not  to  fear  from  an  hundred  mil-, 
lions  of  such  men,  if  she  continues  her  maniac  course 
of  hatred  and  hostility  to  them?  I  hope  in  God  she 
will  change.  There  is  not  a  nation  on  the  globe  with 
whom  I  have  more  earnestly  wished  a  friendly  inter- 


286  Jefferson's  Works 

course  on  equal  conditions.  On  no  other  would  I 
hold  out  the  hand  of  friendship  to  any.  I  know  that 
their  creatures  represent  me  as  personally  an  enemy 
to  England.  But  fools  only  can  believe  this,  or  those 
who  think  me  a  fool.  I  am  an  enemy  to  her  insults 
and  injuries.  I  am  an  enemy  to  the  flagitious  prin- 
ciples of  her  administration,  and  to  those  which  gov- 
ern her  conduct  towards  other  nations.  But  would 
she  give  to  morality  some  place  in  her  political  code, 
and  especially  would  she  exercise  decency,  and  at 
least  neutral  passions  towards  us,  there  is  not,  I 
repeat  it,  a  people  on  earth  with  whom  I  would  sacri- 
fice so  much  to  be  in  friendship.  They  can  do  us,  as 
enemies,  more  harm  than  any  other  nation;  and  in 
peace  and  in  war,  they  have  more  means  of  disturb- 
ing us  internally.  Their  merchants  established 
among  us,  the  bonds  by  which  our  own  are  chained 
to  their  feet,  and  the  banking  combinations  inter- 
woven with  the  whole,  have  shown  the  extent  of  their 
control,  even  during  a  war  with  her.  They  are  the 
workers  of  all  the  embarrassments  our  finances  have 
experienced  during  the  war.  Declaring  themselves 
bankrupt,  they  have  been  able  still  to  chain  the  gov- 
ernment to  a  dependence  on  them,  and  had  the  war 
continued,  they  would  have  reduced  us  to  the  in- 
ability to  command  a  single  dollar.  They  dared  to 
proclaim  that  they  would  not  pay  their  own  paper 
obligations,  yet  our  government  could  not  venture 
to  avail  themselves  of  this  opportunity  of  sweeping 
their  paper  from  the  circulation,  and  substituting 


Correspondence  287 

cheir  own  notes  bottomed  on  specific  taxes  for  re- 
demption, which  every  one  would  have  eagerly  taken 
and  trusted,  rather  than  the  baseless  trash  of  bank- 
rupt companies;  our  government,  I  say,  have  still 
been  overawed  from  a  contest  with  them,  and  has 
even  countenanced  and  strengthened  their  influence, 
by  proposing  new  establishments,  with  authority  to 
swindle  yet  greater  sums  from  our  citizens.  This  is 
the  British  influence  to  which  I  am  an  enemy,  and 
which  we  must  subject  to  our  government,  or  it  will 
subject  us  to  that  of  Britain. 

vL*  +£*  *J>  *t#  *>£*■  *£*  *■£*  *&0  *£* 

f^  ^^  ^^  ^f*  ^r  ^^  ^^  ^^  ^^ 

Come,  and  gratify,  by  seeing  you  once  more,  a 
friend  who  assures  you  with  sincerity  of  his  constant 
^nd  affectionate  attachment  and  respect. 


TO  GENERAL  HENRY  DEARBORN. 

Monticello,  March  17,   181 5. 

My  Dear  General,  Friend,  and  Ancient  Col- 
league,— I  have  received  your  favor  of  February 
the  27th,  with  very  great  pleasure,  and  sincerely 
reciprocate  congratulations  on  late  events.  Peace 
was  indeed  desirable ;  yet  it  would  not  have  been  as 
welcome  without  the  successes  of  New  Orleans. 
These  last  have  established  truths  too  important 
not  to  be  valued;  that  the  people  of  Louisiana  are 
sincerely  attached  to  the  Union;  that  their  city  can 
be  defended;  that  the  Western  States  make  its  de- 
fence their  peculiar  concern;    that  the  militia  are 


288  Jefferson's  Works 

brave ;  that  their  deadly  aim  countervails  the  manoeu- 
vering  skill  of  their  enemy;  that  we  have  officers  of 
natural  genius  now  starting  forward  from  the  mass; 
and  that,  putting  together  all  our  conflicts,  we  can 
beat  the  British  by  sea  and  by  land,  with  equal  num- 
bers. All  this  being  now  proved,  I  am  glad  of  the 
pacification  of  Ghent,  and  shall  still  be  more  so,  if, 
by  a  reasonable  arrangement  against  impressment, 
they  will  make  it  truly  a  treaty  of  peace,  and  not  a 
mere  truce,  as  we  must  all  consider  it,  until  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  war  is  settled.  Nor,  among  the  incidents 
of  the  war,  will  we  forget  your  services.  After  the 
disasters  produced  by  the  treason  or  the  cowardice, 
or  both,  of  Hull,  and  the  follies  of  some  others,  your 
capture  of  York  and  Port  George,  first  turned  the 
tide  of  success  in  our  favor ;  and  the  subsequent  cam- 
paigns sufficiently  wiped  away  the  disgrace  of  the 
first.  If  it  were  justifiable  to  look  to  your  own  hap- 
piness only,  your  resolution  to  retire  from  all  public 
business  could  not  but  be  approved.  But  you  are 
too  young  to  ask  a  discharge  as  yet,  and  the  public 
counsels  too  much  needing  the  wisdom  of  our  ablest 
citizens,  to  relinquish  their  claim  on  you.  And 
surely  none  needs  your  aid  more  than  your  own  State. 
Oh,  Massachusetts!  how  have  I  lamented  the  degra- 
dation of  your  apostasy !  Massachusetts,  with  whom 
I  went  with  pride  in  1776,  whose  vote  was  my  vote 
on  every  public  question,  and  whose  principles  were 
then  the  standard  of  whatever  was  free  or  fearless. 
But  she  was  then  under  the  counsels  of  the  two 


Correspondence  289 

Adamses;  while  Strong,  her  present  leader,  was 
promoting  petitions  for  submission  to  British  power 
and  British  usurpation.  While  under  her  present 
counsels,  she  must  be  contented  to  be  nothing;  as 
having  a  vote,  indeed,  to  be  counted,  but  not  re- 
spected. But  should  the  State  once  more  buckle  on 
her  republican  harness,  we  shall  receive  her  again  as 
a  sister,  and  recollect  her  wanderings  among  the 
crimes  only  of  the  parricide  party,  which  would  have 
basely  sold  what  their  fathers  so  bravely  won  from 
the  same  enemy.  Let  us  look  forward,  then,  to  the 
act  of  repentance,  which,  by  dismissing  her  venal 
traitors,  shall  be  the  signal  of  return  to  the  bosom  and 
to  the  principles  of  her  brethren;  and  if  her  late 
humiliation  can  just  give  her  modesty  enough  to 
suppose  that  her  Southern  brethren  are  somewhat 
on  a  par  with  her  in  wisdom,  in  information,  in  patri- 
otism, in  bravery,  and  even  in  honesty,  although  not 
in  psalm-singing,  she  will  more  justly  estimate  her 
own  relative  momentum  in  the  Union.  With  her 
ancient  principles,  she  would  really  be  great,  if  she 
did  not  think  herself  the  whole.  I  should  be  pleased 
to  hear  that  you  go  into  her  counsels,  and  assist  in 
bringing  her  back  to  those  principles,  and  to  a  sober 
satisfaction  with  her  proportionable  share  in  the 
direction  of  our  affairs. 

*,L»  %1+  vt#  %1*  *J>»  %±*  kL»  vt#  m$0 

^w  ^^  ^^  ^^  ^^  ^^  *J»  *J»  *T* 

Be  so  good  as  to  lay  my  homage  at  the  feet  of  Mrs. 
Dearborn,  and  be  assured  that  I  am  ever  and  affec- 
tionately yours. 
VOL.  xiv — 19 


290  Jefferson  VWorics 


TO    THE    PRESIDENT    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 
(JAMES    MADISON). 

Monticello,  March  23,   181 5. 
Dear  Sir, — I  duly  received  your  favor  of  the  12th, 
and  with  it  the  pamphlet  on  the  causes  and  conduct 
of  the  war,  which  I  now  return.     I  have  read  it  with 
great  pleasure,  but  with  irresistible  desire  that  it 
should  be  published.     The  reasons  in  favor  of  this 
are  strong,  and  those  against  it  are  so  easily  gotten 
over,  that  there  appears  to  me  no  balance  between 
them.     1 .  We  need  it  in  Europe.     They  have  totally 
mistaken  our  character.     Accustomed  to  rise  at  a 
feather  themselves,  and  to  be  always  fighting,  they 
will  see  in  our  conduct,  fairly  stated,  that  acquies- 
cence under  wrong,  to  a  certain  degree,  is  wisdom, 
and  not  pusillanimity ;  and  that  peace  and  happiness 
are  preferable  to  that  false  honor  which,  by  eternal 
wars,  keeps  their  people  in  eternal  labor,  want,  and 
wretchedness.     2.  It  is  necessary  for  the  people  of 
England,  who  have  been  deceived  as  to  the  causes 
and  conduct  of  the  war,  and  do  not  entertain  a  doubt, 
that  it  was  entirely  wanton  and  wicked  on  our  part, 
and  under  the  order  of  Bonaparte.     By  rectifying 
their  ideas,  it  will  tend  to  that  conciliation  which  is 
absolutely  necessary  to  the  peace  and  prosperity  of 
both  nations.     3.  It  is  necessary  for  our  own  people, 
who,  although  they  have  known  the  details  as  they 
went  along,  yet  have  been  so  plied  with  false  facts 
and  false  views  by  the  federalists,  that  some  impres- 


Correspondence  29 1 

sion  has  been  left  that  all  has  not  been  right.  It 
may  be  said  that  it  will  be  thought  unfriendly.  But 
truths  necessary  for  our  own  character,  must  not  be 
suppressed  out  of  tenderness  to  its  calumniators. 
Although  written,  generally,  with  great  moderation, 
there  may  be  some  things  in  the  pamphlet  which 
may  perhaps  irritate.  The  characterizing  every  act, 
for  example,  by  its  appropriate  epithet,  is  not  neces- 
sary to  show  its  deformity  to  an  intelligent  reader. 
The  naked  narrative  will  present  it  truly  to  his  mind, 
and  the  more  strongly,  from  its  moderation,  as  he 
will  perceive  that  no  exaggeration  is  aimed  at.  Rub- 
bing down  these  roughnesses,  and  they  are  neither 
many  nor  prominent,  and  preserving  the  original 
date,  might,  I  think,  remove  all  the  offensiveness, 
and  give  more  effect  to  the  publication.  Indeed,  I 
think  that  a  soothing  postscript,  addressed  to  the 
interests,  the  prospects,  and  the  sober  reason  of  both 
nations,  would  make  it  acceptable  to  both.  The 
trifling  expense  of  reprinting  it  ought  not  to  be  con- 
sidered a  moment.  Mr.  Gallatin  could  have  it  trans- 
lated into  French,  and  suffer  it  to  get  abroad  in 
Europe  without  either  avowal  or  disavowal.  But  it 
would  be  useful  to  print  some  copies  of  an  appen- 
dix, containing  all  the  documents  referred  to,  to  be 
preserved  in  libraries,  and  to  facilitate  to  the  present 
and  future  writers  of  history,  the  acquisition  of  the 
materials  which  test  the  truth  it  contains. 

I  sincerely  congratulate  you  on  the   peace,  and 
more  especially  on  the  eclat  with  which  the  war  was 


292  Jefferson's  Works 

closed.  The  affair  of  New  Orleans  was  fraught  with 
useful  lessons  to  ourselves,  our  enemies,  and  our 
friends,  and  will  powerfully  influence  our  future  rela- 
tions with  the  nations  of  Europe.  It  will  show  them 
we  mean  to  take  no  part  in  their  wars,  and  count  no 
odds  when  engaged  in  our  own.  I  presume  that, 
having  spared  to  the  pride  of  England  her  formal 
acknowledgment  of  the  atrocity  of  impressment  in  an 
article  of  the  treaty,  she  will  concur  in  a  convention 
for  relinquishing  it.  Without  this,  she  must  under- 
stand that  the  present  is  but  a  truce,  determinable 
on  the  first  act  of  impressment  of  an  American  citi- 
zen, committed  by  any  officer  of  hers.  Would  it  not 
be  better  that  this  convention  should  be  a  separate 
act,  unconnected  with  any  treaty  of  commerce,  and 
made  an  indispensable  preliminary  to  all  other  treaty? 
If  blended  with  a  treaty  of  commerce,  she  will  make  it 
the  price  of  injurious  concessions.  Indeed,  we  are  in- 
finitely better  without  such  treaties  with  any  nation. 
We  cannot  too  distinctly  detach  ourselves  from  the 
European  system,  which  is  essentially  belligerent, 
nor  too  sedulously  cultivate  an  American  system, 
essentially  pacific.  But  if  we  go  into  commercial 
treaties  at  all,  they  should  be  with  all,  at  the  same 
time,  with  whom  we  have  important  commercial 
relations.  France,  Spain,  Portugal,  Holland,  Den- 
mark, Sweden,  Russia,  all  should  proceed  pari  passu. 
Our  ministers  marching  in  phalanx  on  the  same  line, 
and  intercommunicating  freely,  each  will  be  sup- 
ported by  the  weight  of  the  whole  mass,  and  the 


Correspondence  293 

facility  with  which  the  other  nations  will  agree  to 
equal  terms  of  intercourse,  will  discountenance  the 
selfish  higglings  of  England,  or  justify  our  rejection 
of  them.  Perhaps,  with  all  of  them,  it  would  be  best 
to  have  but  the  single  article  gentis  amicissimcz,  leav- 
ing everything  else  to  the  usages  and  courtesies  of 
civilized  nations.  But  all  these  things  will  occur  to 
yourself,  with  their  counter-consideration. 

Mr.  Smith  wrote  to  me  on  the  transportation  of 
the  library,  and,  particularly,  that  it  is  submitted  to 
your  direction.  He  mentioned,  also,  that  Dougherty 
would  be  engaged  to  superintend  it.  No  one  will 
more  carefully  and  faithfully  execute  all  those  duties 
which  would  belong  to  a  wagon  master.  But  it 
requires  a  character  acquainted  with  books,  to 
receive  the  library.  I  am  now  employing  as  many 
hours  of  every  day  as  my  strength  will  permit,  in 
arranging  the  books,  and  putting  every  one  in  its 
place  on  the  shelves,  corresponding  with  its  order 
on  the  catalogue,  and  shall  have  them  numbered  cor- 
respondently.  This  operation  will  employ  me  a  con- 
siderable time  yet.  Then  I  should  wish  a  competent 
agent  to  attend,  and,  with  the  catalogue  in  his  hand, 
see  that  every  book  is  on  the  shelves,  and  have  their 
lids  nailed  on,  one  by  one,  as  he  proceeds.  This 
would  take  such  a  person  about  two  days;  after 
which,  Dougherty's  business  would  be  the  mere 
mechanical  removal,  at  convenience.  I  enclose  you 
a  letter  from  Mr.  Milligan,  offering  his  service,  which 
would  not  cost  more  than  eight  or  ten  days'  reason- 


294  Jefferson's  Works 

able  compensation.  This  is  necessary  for  my  safety 
and  your  satisfaction,  as  a  just  caution  for  the  public. 
You  know  that  there  are  persons,  both  in  and  out  of 
the  public  councils,  who  will  seize  every  occasion  of 
imputation  on  either  of  us,  the  more  difficult  to  be 
repelled  in  this  case,  in  which  a  negative  could  not 
be  proved.  If  you  approve  of  it,  therefore,  as  soon 
as  I  am  through  the  review,  I  will  give  notice  to  Mr. 
Milligan,  or  any  other  person  you  will  name,  to  come 
on  immediately.  Indeed  it  would  be  well  worth 
while  to  add  to  his  duty,  that  of  covering  the  books 
with  a  little  paper,  (the  good  bindings,  at  least,)  and 
filling  the  vacancies  of  the  presses  with  paper  parings, 
to  be  brought  from  Washington.  This  would  add 
little  more  to  the  time,  as  he  could  carry  on  both 
operations  at  once. 

Accept  the  assurance  of  my  constant  and  affec- 
tionate friendship  and  respect. 


TO    L.    H.    GIRARDIN. 

Monticello,  March  27,   181 5. 

I  return  your  14th  chapter  with  only  two  or  three 
unimportant  alterations  as  usual,  and  with  a  note 
suggested,  of  doubtful  admissibility.  I  believe  it 
would  be  acceptable  to  the  reader  of  every  nation 
except  England,  and  I  do  not  suppose  that,  even 
without  it,  your  book  will  be  a  popular  one  there, 
however  you  will  decide  for  yourself. 

As  to  what  is  to  be  said  of  myself,  I  of  course  am 


Correspondence  295 

not  the  judge.  But  my  sincere  wish  is  that  the  faith- 
ful historian,  like  the  able  surgeon,  would  consider 
me  in  his  hands,  while  living,  as  a  dead  subject,  that 
the  same  judgment  may  now  be  expressed  which  will 
be  rendered  hereafter,  so  far  as  my  small  agency  in 
human  affairs  may  attract  future  notice ;  and  I  would 
of  choice  now  stand  as  at  the  bar  of  posterity,  "Cum 
semel  occidaris,  et  de  te  ultima  Minos  Fecerit  arbitria." 
The  only  exact  testimony  of  a  man  is  his  actions, 
leaving  the  reader  to  pronounce  on  them  his  own 
judgment.  In  anticipating  this,  too  little  is  safer 
than  too  much;  and  I  sincerely  assure  you  that  you 
will  please  me  most  by  a  rigorous  suppression  of 
all  friendly  partialities.  This  candid  expression  of 
sentiments  once  delivered,  passive  silence  becomes 
the  future  duty. 

It  is  with  real  regret  I  inform  you  that  the  day  of 
delivering  the  library  is  close  at  hand.  A  letter  by 
last  mail  informs  me  that  Mr.  Milligan  is  ordered  to 
come  on  the  instant  I  am  ready  to  deliver.  I  shall 
complete  the  arrangement  of  the  books  on  Saturday. 
There  will  then  remain  only  to  paste  on  them  their 
numbers,  which  will  be  begun  on  Sunday.  Of  this 
Mr.  Milligan  has  notice,  and  may  be  expected  every 
hour  after  Monday  next.  He  will  examine  the  books 
by  the  catalogue,  and  nail  up  the  presses,  one  by  one, 
as  he  gets  through  them.  But  it  is  indispensable  for 
me  to  have  all  the  books  in  their  places  when  we 
begin  to  number  them,  and  it  would  be  a  great  con- 
venience to  have  all  you  can  do  without  now,  to  put 


296  Jefferson's  Works 

them  into  the  places  they  should  occupy.  Ancient 
history  is  numbered.  Modern  history  comes  next. 
The  bearer  carries  a  basket  to  receive  what  he  can 
bring  of  those  you  are  done  with.  I  salute  you  with 
friendship  and  respect. 


TO    DAVID    BARROW. 

Monticello,  May  1,  1815. 
Sir, — I  have  duly  received  your  favor  of  March 
20th,  and  am  truly  thankful  for  the  favorable  senti- 
ments expressed  in  it  towards  myself.  If,  in  the 
course  of  my  life,  it  has  been  in  any  degree  useful  to 
the  cause  of  humanity,  the  fact  itself  bears  its  full 
reward.  The  particular  subject  of  the  pamphlet 
you  enclosed  me  was  one  of  early  and  tender  con- 
sideration with  me,  and  had  I  continued  in  the  coun- 
cils of  my  own  State,  it  should  never  have  been  out 
of  sight.  The  only  practicable  plan  I  could  ever 
devise  is  stated  under  the  14th  quaere  of  the  Notes 
on  Virginia,  and  it  is  still  the  one  most  sound  in  my 
judgment.  Unhappily  it  is  a  case  for  which  both 
parties  require  long  and  difficult  preparation.  The 
mind  of  the  master  is  to  be  apprised  by  reflection, 
and  strengthened  by  the  energies  of  conscience, 
against  the  obstacles  of  self-interest  to  an  acquies- 
cence in  the  rights  of  others;  that  of  the  slave  is  to 
be  prepared  by  instruction  and  habit  for  self-govern- 
ment, and  for  the  honest  pursuits  of  industry  and 
social  duty.     Both  of  these  courses  of  preparation 


Correspondence  297 

require  time,  and  the  former  must  precede  the  latter. 
Some  progress  is  sensibly  made  in  it;  yet  not  so 
much  as  I  had  hoped  and  expected.  But  it  will  yield 
in  time  to  temperate  and  steady  pursuit,  to  the  en- 
largement of  the  human  mind,  and  its  advancement 
in  science.  We  are  not  in  a  world  ungoverned  by  the 
laws  and  the  power  of  a  superior  agent.  Our  efforts 
are  in  His  hand,  and  directed  by  it ;  and  He  will  give 
them  their  effect  in  His  own  time.  Where  the  disease 
is  most  deeply  seated,  there  it  will  be  slowest  in  eradi- 
cation. In  the  Northern  States  it  was  merely  super- 
ficial, and  easily  corrected.  In  the  Southern  it  is 
incorporated  with  the  whole  system,  and  requires 
time,  patience,  and  perseverance  in  the  curative 
process.  That  it  may  finally  be  effected,  and  its 
progress  hastened,  will  be  the  last  and  fondest 
prayer  of  him  who  now  salutes  you  with  respect  and 
consideration. 


TO    MONSIEUR   DUPONT    DE    NEMOURS. 

Monticello,  May  15,  1815. 
My  Dear  Friend, — The  newspapers  tell  us  you 
are  arrived  in  the  United  States.  I  congratulate 
my  country  on  this  as  a  manifestation  that  you  con- 
sider its  civil  advantages  as  more  than  equivalent 
to  the  physical  comforts  and  social  delights  of  a  coun- 
try which  possesses  both  in  the  highest  degree  of  any 
one  on  earth.  You  despair  of  your  country,  and  so 
do  I.     A  military  despotism  is  now  fixed  upon  it 


298  Jefferson's  Works 

permanently,  especially  if  the  son  of  the  tyrant 
should  have  virtues  and  talents.  What  a  treat 
would  it  be  to  me,  to  be  with  you,  and  to  learn  from 
you  all  the  intrigues,  apostasies  and  treacheries 
which  have  produced  this  last  death's  blow  to  the 
hopes  of  France.  For,  although  not  in  the  will, 
there  was  in  the  imbecility  of  the  Bourbons  a  founda- 
tion of  hope  that  the  patriots  of  France  might  obtain 
a  moderate  representative  government.  Here  you 
will  find  rejoicings  on  this  event,  and  by  a  strange 
quid  pro  quo,  not  by  the  party  hostile  to  liberty,  but 
by  its  zealous  friends.  In  this  they  see  nothing  but 
the  scourge  reproduced  for  the  back  of  England, 
they  do  not  permit  themselves  to  see  in  it  the  blast 
of  all  the  hopes  of  mankind,  and  that  however  it  may 
jeopardize  England,  it  gives  to  her  self-defence  the 
lying  countenance  again  of  being  the  sole  champion 
of  the  rights  of  man,  to  which  in  all  other  nations  she 
is  most  adverse.  I  wrote  to  you  on  the  28th  of  Feb- 
ruary, by  a  Mr.  Ticknor,  then  proposing  to  sail  for 
France,  but  the  conclusion  of  peace  induced  him  to 
go  first  to  England.  I  hope  he  will  keep  my  letter 
out  of  the  post  offices  of  France ;  for  it  was  not  written 
for  the  inspection  of  those  now  in  power.  You  will 
now  be  a  witness  of  our  deplorable  ignorance  in 
finance  and  political  economy  generally.  I  men- 
tioned in  my  letter  of  February  that  I  was  endeavor- 
ing to  get  your  memoir  on  that  subject  printed.  I 
have  not  yet  succeeded.  I  am  just  setting  out  to  a 
distant  possession  of  mine,  and  shall  be  absent  three 
weeks.     God  bless  you. 


Exterior  of  Independence  Hall 

Reproduced  from  an  Old  Engraving 

Independence  Hall,  hn  Chestnut  street,  in  Philadelphia,  Pa.,  is  an 
ordinary-looking  brick  building,  with  nothing  remarkable  about  its 
architecture  or  construction  to  attract  attention.  However,  it  has  been 
the  scene  of  two  of  the  most  important  events  in  the  history  of  the  United 
States,  namely,  the  appointment  of  Washington  as  Commander-in-Chief  of 
the  American  Army  and  the  adoption  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
Independence  Hall  is  now  employed  as  a  museum  to  preserve  the  histori- 
cal relics  and  portraits  of  the  times  of  the  Revolutionary  War. 


IIbH  sonsbnsqsbnl  to  ionsix3 

§niv£isn3  blO  n£  moil  beonboiqefl 
rtR   «     fiq    BiriqbLliriq  ni  ^eeiia  JimiaerfD  no*  JUbH  sonebneqebnl 

need  esri M levewoH  .noitostta  *>aiila  o)  noiiDiiiteflOD  io  aiii*>9*irfDia 
b9?^U9dJ  lo^oiSri  erttni  aJneve  inaMoqmi  Jaom  arillo  owilo  ^=i«  arij 
totetdO-nllslm&mmoD  sb  noigmrfaaW  to  inenrtmoqqa  erfi  xIamaii  t89JaJ3 
eDnabneqebnl  rnotiBiBbeQ  erii  lo  nobqoba  erf*  bna  xjmA  nBDnemA  erf* 
:?TOJ8fd  Srf?°vi989iq  ol  mi/eaum  a  aa  beXoIqme  won  81  IIbH  eDnebneqebnl 


Correspondence  299 

TO    JOHN    ADAMS. 

Monticello,  June  10,   1815. 

Dear  Sir, — It  is  long  since  we  have  exchanged  a 
letter,  and  yet  what  volumes  might  have  been  written 
on  the  occurrences  even  of  the  last  three  months.  In 
the  first  place,  peace,  God  bless  it!  has  returned  to 
put  us  all  again  into  a  course  of  lawful  and  laudable 
pursuits ;  a  new  trial  of  the  Bourbons  has  proved  to 
the  world  their  incompetence  to  the  functions  of  the 
station  they  have  occupied;  and  the  recall  of  the 
usurper  has  clothed  him  with  the  semblance  of  a 
legitimate  autocrat.  If  adversity  should  have  taught 
him  wisdom,  of  which  I  have  little  expectation,  he 
may  yet  render  some  service  to  mankind,  by  teach- 
ing the  ancient  dynasties  that  they  can  be  changed 
for  misrule,  and  by  wearing  down  the  maritime 
power  of  England  to  limit  able  and  safe  dimensions. 
But  it  is  not  possible  he  should  love  us ;  and  of  that 
our  commerce  had  sufficient  proof  during  his  power. 
Our  military  achievements,  indeed,  which  he  is 
capable  of  estimating,  may,  in  some  degree,  moder- 
ate the  effect  of  his  aversions ;  and  he  may  perhaps 
fancy  that  we  are  to  become  the  natural  enemies  of 
England,  as  England  herself  has  so  steadily  endeav- 
ored to  make  us,  and  as  some  of  our  own  over-zealous 
patriots  would  be  willing  to  proclaim;  and,  in  this 
view,  he  may  admit  a  cold  toleration  of  some  inter- 
course and  commerce  between  the  two  nations.  He 
has  certainly  had  time  to  see  the  folly  of  turning  the 


3°°  Jefferson's  Works 

industry  of  France  from  the  cultures  for  which  nature 
has  so  highly  endowed  her,  to  those  of  sugar,  cotton, 
tobacco,  and  others,  which  the  same  creative  power 
has  given  to  other  climates;  and,  on  the  whole,  if  he 
can  conquer  the  passions  of  his  tyrannical  soul,  if 
he  has  understanding  enough  to  pursue  from  motives 
of  interest,  what  no  moral  motives  lead  him  to,  the 
tranquil  happiness  and  prosperity  of  his  country, 
rather  than  a  ravenous  thirst  for  human  blood,  his 
return  may  become  of  more  advantage  than  injury 
to  us.  And  if,  again,  some  great  man  could  arise  in 
England,  who  could  see  and  correct  the  follies  of  his 
nation  in  their  conduct  as  to  us,  and  by  exercising 
justice  and  comity  towards  ours,  bring  both  into  a 
state  of  temperate  and  useful  friendship,  it  is  possible 
we  might  thus  attain  the  place  we  ought  to  occupy 
between  these  two  nations,  without  being  degraded 
to  the  condition  of  mere  partisans  of  either. 

A  little  time  will  now  inform  us,  whether  France, 
within  its  proper  limits,  is  big  enough  for  its  ruler, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  whether,  on  the  other,  the 
allied  powers  are  either  wicked  or  foolish  enough  to 
attempt  the  forcing  on  the  French  a  ruler  and  gov- 
ernment which  they  refuse  ?  Whether  they  will  risk 
their  own  thrones  to  re-establish  that  of  the  Bour- 
bons ?  If  this  is  attempted,  and  the  European  world 
again  committed  to  war,  will  the  jealousy  of  England 
at  the  commerce  which  neutrality  will  give  us,  induce 
her  again  to  add  us  to  the  number  of  her  enemies, 
rather  than  see  us  prosper  in  the  pursuit  of  peace  and 


Correspondence  301 

industry  ?  And  have  our  commercial  citizens  merited 
from  their  country  its  encountering  another  war  to 
protect  their  gambling  enterprises?  That  the  per- 
sons of  our  citizens  shall  be  safe  in  freely  traversing 
the  ocean,  that  the  transportation  of  our  own  pro- 
duce, in  our  own  vessels,  to  the  markets  of  our  choice, 
and  the  return  to  us  of  the  articles  we  want  for  our 
own  use,  shall  be  unmolested,  I  hold  to  be  funda- 
mental, and  the  gauntlet  that  must  be  for  ever  hurled 
at  him  who  questions  it.  But  whether  we  shall  en- 
gage in  every  war  of  Europe,  to  protect  the  mere 
agency  of  our  merchants  and  ship-owners  in  carrying 
on  the  commerce  of  other  nations,  even  were  these- 
merchants  and  ship-owners  to  take  the  side  of  their 
country  in  the  contest,  instead  of  that  of  the  enemy, 
is  a  question  of  deep  and  serious  consideration,  with 
which,  however,  you  and  I  shall  have  nothing  to  do; 
so  we  will  leave  it  to  those  whom  it  will  concern. 

I  thank  you  for  making  known  to  me  Mr.  Ticknor 
and  Mr.  Gray.  They  are  fine  young  men,  indeed, 
and  if  Massachusetts  can  raise  a  few  more  such,  it  is 
probable  she  would  be  better  counseled  as  to  social 
rights  and  social  duties.  Mr.  Ticknor  is,  particu- 
larly, the  best  bibliograph  I  have  met  with,  and  very 
kindly  and  opportunely  offered  me  the  means  of  re- 
procuring  some  part  of  the  literary  treasures  which 
I  have  ceded  to  Congress,  to  replace  the  devastations 
of  British  vandalism  at  Washington.  I  cannot  live 
without  books.  But  fewer  will  suffice,  where  amuse- 
ment, and  not  use,  is  the  only  future  object.     I  am 


302  Jefferson's  Works 

about  sending  him  a  catalogue,  to  which  less  than 
his  critical  knowledge  of  books  would  hardly  be  ade- 
quate. 

Present  my  high  respects  to  Mrs.  Adams,  and 
accept  yourself  the  assurance  of  my  affectionate 
attachment. 


TO    W.    H.    TORRANCE. 

Monticello,  June  ii,   1815. 

Sir, — I  received  a  few  days  ago  your  favor  of  May 
5  th,  stating  a  question  on  a  law  of  the  State  of  Geor- 
gia which  suspends  judgments  for  a  limited  time,  and 
asking  my  opinion  whether  it  may  be  valid  under  the 
inhibition  of  our  Constitution  to  pass  laws  impairing 
the  obligations  of  contracts.  It  is  more  than  forty 
years  since  I  have  quitted  the  practice  of  the  law,  and 
been  engaged  in  vocations  which  furnished  little  occa- 
sion of  preserving  a  familiarity  with  that  science.  I 
am  far,  therefore,  from  being  qualified  to  decide  on 
the  problems  it  presents,  and  certainly  not  disposed 
to  obtrude  in  a  case  where  gentlemen  have  been  con- 
sulted of  the  first  qualifications,  and  of  actual  and 
daily  familiarity  with  the  subject,  especially,  too,  in 
a  question  on  the  law  of  another  State.  We  have 
in  this  State  a  law  resembling  in  some  degree  that 
you  quote,  suspending  executions  until  a  year  after 
the  treaty  of  peace;  but  no  question  under  it  has 
been  raised  before  the  courts.  It  is  also,  I  believe, 
expected  that  wh^n  this  shall  exT"-«v\  ;-n  ^onsidera- 


Correspondence  3°3 

tion  of  the  absolute  impossibility  of  procuring  coin 
to  satisfy  judgments,  a  law  will  be  passed,  similar 
to  that  passed  in  England,  on  suspending  the  cash 
payments  of  their  bank,  that  provided  that  on  re- 
fusal by  a  party  to  receive  notes  of  the  Bank  of  Eng- 
land in  any  case  either  of  past  or  future  contracts, 
the  judgment  should  be  suspended  during  the  con- 
tinuance of  that  act,  bearing,  however,  legal  interest. 
They  seemed  to  consider  that  it  was  not  this  law 
which  changed  the  conditions  of  the  contract,  but 
the  circumstances  which  had  arisen,  and  had  ren- 
dered its  literal  execution  impossible;  by  the  dis- 
appearance of  the  metallic  medium  stipulated  by 
the  contract,  that  the  parties  not  concurring  in  a 
reasonable  and  just  accommodation,  it  became  the 
duty  of  the  legislature  to  arbitrate  between  them ;  and 
that  less  restrained  than  the  Duke  of  Venice  by  the 
letter  of  decree,  they  were  free  to  adjudge  to  Shylock 
a  reasonable  equivalent.  And  I  believe  that  in  our 
States  this  umpirage  of  the  legislatures  has  been 
generally  interposed  in  cases  where  a  literal  execu- 
tion of  contract  has,  by  a  change  of  circumstances, 
become  impossible,  or,  if  enforced,  would  produce  a 
disproportion  between  the  subject  of  the  contract 
and  its  price,  which  the  parties  did  not  contemplate 
at  the  time  of  the  contract. 

The  second  question,  whether  the  judges  are  in- 
vested with  exclusive  authority  to  decide  on  the 
constitutionality  of  a  law,  has  been  heretofore  a  sub- 
ject  of   consideration   wifh    me   in   the   exerr-isp   of 


3°4  Jefferson's  Works 

official  duties.  Certainly  there  is  not  a  word  in  the 
Constitution  which  has  given  that  power  to  them 
more  than  to  the  executive  or  legislative  branches. 
Questions  of  property,  of  character  and  of  crime 
being  ascribed  to  the  judges,  through  a  definite  course 
of  legal  proceeding,  laws  involving  such  questions 
belong,  of  course,  to  them;  and  as  they  decide  on 
them  ultimately  and  without  appeal,  they  of  course 
decide  for  themselves.  The  constitutional  validity 
of  the  law  or  laws  again  prescribing  executive  action, 
and  to  be  administered  by  that  branch  ultimately 
and  without  appeal,  the  executive  must  decide  for 
themselves  also,  whether,  under  the  Constitution,  they 
are  valid  or  not.  So  also  as  to  laws  governing  the 
proceedings  of  the  legislature,  that  body  must  judge 
for  itself  the  constitutionality  of  the  law,  and  equally 
without  appeal  or  control  from  its  co-ordinate 
branches.  And,  in  general,  that  branch  which  is 
to  act  ultimately,  and  without  appeal,  on  any  law, 
is  the  rightful  expositor  of  the  validity  of  the  law, 
uncontrolled  by  the  opinions  of  the  other  co-ordinate 
authorities.  It  may  be  said  that  contradictory  deci- 
sions may  arise  in  such  case,  and  produce  incon- 
venience. This  is  possible,  and  is  a  necessary  failing 
in  all  human  proceedings.  Yet  the  prudence  of  the 
public  functionaries,  and  authority  of  public  opinion, 
will  generally  produce  accommodation.  Such  an 
instance  of  difference  occurred  between  the  judges 
of  England  (in  the  time  of  Lord  Holt)  and  the  House 
of  Commons,  but  the  prudence  of  those  bodies  pre- 


Correspondence  3°5 

vented  inconvenience  from  it.  So  in  the  cases  of 
Duane  and  of  William  Smith  of  South  Carolina, 
whose  characters  of  citizenship  stood  precisely  on 
the  same  ground,  the  judges  in  a  question  of  meum 
and  tuum  which  came  before  them,  decided  that 
Duane  was  not  a  citizen ;  and  in  a  question  of  mem- 
bership, the  House  of  Representatives,  under  the 
same  words  of  the  same  provision,  adjudged  William 
Smith  to  be  a  citizen.  Yet  no  inconvenience  has 
ensued  from  these  contradictory  decisions.  This  is 
what  I  believe  myself  to  be  sound.  But  there  is 
another  opinion  entertained  by  some  men  of  such 
judgment  and  information  as  to  lessen  my  confidence 
in  my  own.  That  is,  that  the  legislature  alone  is 
the  exclusive  expounder  of  the  sense  of  the  Consti- 
tution, in  every  part  of  it  whatever.  And  they  allege 
in  its  support,  that  this  branch  has  authority  to  im- 
peach and  punish  a  member  of  either  of  the  others 
acting  contrary  to  its  declaration  of  the  sense  of  the 
Constitution.  It  may  indeed  be  answered,  that  an 
act  may  still  be  valid  although  the  party  is  punished 
for  it,  right  or  wrong.  However,  this  opinion  which 
ascribes  exclusive  exposition  to  the  legislature,  merits 
respect  for  its  safety,  there  being  in  the  body  of  the 
nation  a  control  over  them,  which,  if  expressed  by 
rejection  on  the  subsequent  exercise  of  their  elective 
franchise,  enlists  public  opinion  against  their  ex- 
position, and  encourages  a  judge  or  executive  on  a 
future  occasion  to  adhere  to  their  former  opinion. 
Be-  tween  these  two   doctrines,   every  one  has  a 

VOL.  XIV — 20 


3°6  Jefferson's  Works 

right  to  choose,  and  I  know  of  no  third  meriting  any 
respect. 

I  have  thus,  Sir,  frankly,  without  the  honor  of  your 
acquaintance,  confided  to  you  my  opinion;  trusting 
assuredly  that  no  use  will  be  made  of  it  which  shall 
commit  me  to  the  contentions  of  the  newspapers. 
From  that  field  of  disquietude  my  age  asks  exemp- 
tion, and  permission  to  enjoy  the  privileged  tran- 
quillity of  a  private  and  unmeddling  citizen.  In  this 
confidence  accept  the  assurances  of  my  respect  and 
consideration. 


TO    THOMAS    LEIPER. 

Monticello,  June  12,   1815. 

Dear  Sir, — A  journey  soon  after  the  receipt  of 
your  favor  of  April  the  17th,  and  an  absence  from 
home  of  some  continuance,  have  prevented  my 
earlier  acknowledgment  of  it.  In  that  came  safely 
my  letter  of  January  the  2d,  18 14.  In  our  princi- 
ples of  government  we  differ  not  at  all;  nor  in  the 
general  object  and  tenor  of  political  measures.  We 
concur  in  considering  the  government  of  England 
as  totally  without  morality,  insolent  beyond  bearing, 
inflated  with  vanity  and  ambition,  aiming  at  the 
exclusive  dominion  of  the  sea,  lost  in  corruption,  of 
deep-rooted  hatred  towards  us,  hostile  to  liberty 
wherever  it  endeavors  to  show  its  head,  and  the 
eternal  disturber  of  the  peace  of  the  world.  In  our 
estimate  of  Bonaparte,  I  suspect  we  differ.  I  view 
him  as  a  political  engine  only,  and  a  very  wicked  one; 


Corfespondenee  3°7 

you,  I  believe,  as  both  political  and  religious,  and 
obeying,  as  an  instrument,  an  unseen  hand.  I  still 
deprecate  his  becoming  sole  lord  of  the  continent  of 
Europe,  which  he  would  have  been,  had  he  reached 
in  triumph  the  gates  of  St.  Petersburg.  The  estab- 
lishment in  our  day  of  another  Roman  empire, 
spreading  vassalage  and  depravity  over  the  face  of 
the  globe,  is  not,  I  hope,  within  the  purposes  of 
Heaven.  Nor  does  the  return  of  Bonaparte  give 
me  pleasure  unmixed;  I  see  in  his  expulsion  of  the 
Bourbons,  a  valuable  lesson  to  the  world,  as  showing 
that  its  ancient  dynasties  may  be  changed  for  their 
misrule.  Should  the  allied  powers  presume  to  dic- 
tate a  ruler  and  government  to  France,  and  follow 
the  example  he  had  set  of  parceling  and  usurping 
to  themselves  their  neighbor  nations,  I  hope  he  will 
give  them  another  lesson  in  vindication  of  the  rights 
of  independence  and  self-government,  which  himself 
had  heretofore  so  much  abused,  and  that  in  this  con- 
test he  will  wear  down  the  maritime  power  of  Eng- 
land to  limitable  and  safe  dimensions.  So  far,  good. 
It  cannot  be  denied,  on  the  other  hand,  that  his  suc- 
cessful perversion  of  the  force  (committed  to  him 
for  vindicating  the  rights  and  liberties  of  his  country) 
to  usurp  its  government,  and  to  enchain  it  under  an 
hereditary  despotism,  is  of  baneful  effect  in  encour- 
aging future  usurpations,  and  deterring  those  under 
oppression  from  rising  to  redress  themselves.  His 
restless  spirit  leaves  no  hope  of  peace  to  the  world; 
and  his  hatred  of  us  is  only  a  little  less  than  that  he 


3°8  Jefferson's  Works 

bears  to  England,  and  England  to  us.  Our  form  of 
government  is  odious  to  him,  as  a  standing  contrast 
between  republican  and  despotic  rule ;  and  as  much 
from  that  hatred,  as  from  ignorance  in  political  econ- 
omy, he  had  excluded  intercourse  between  us  and  his 
people,  by  prohibiting  the  only  articles  they  wanted 
from  us,  that  is,  cotton  and  tobacco.  Whether  the 
war  we  have  had  with  England,  and  the  achieve- 
ments of  that  war,  and  the  hope  that  we  may  become 
his  instruments  and  partisans  against  that  enemy, 
may  induce  him,  in  future,  to  tolerate  our  commer- 
cial intercourse  with  his  people,  is  still  to  be  seen. 
For  my  part,  I  wish  that  all  nations  may  recover  and 
retain  their  independence ;  that  those  which  are  over- 
grown may  not  advance  beyond  safe  measures  of 
power,  that  a  salutary  balance  may  be  ever  main- 
tained among  nations,  and  that  our  peace,  commerce, 
and  friendship,  may  be  sought  and  cultivated  by  all. 
It  is  our  business  to  manufacture  for  ourselves  what- 
ever we  can,  to  keep  our  markets  open  for  what  we 
can  spare  or  want;  and  the  less  we  have  to  do  with 
the  amities  or  enmities  of  Europe,  the  better.  Not 
in  our  day,  but  at  no  distant  one,  we  may  shake  a  rod 
over  the  heads  of  all,  which  may  make  the  stoutest  of 
them  tremble.  But  I  hope  our  wisdom  will  grow 
with  our  power,  and  teach  us,  that  the  less  we  use 
our  power,  the  greater  it  will  be. 

The  federal  misrepresentation  of  my  sentiments, 
which  occasioned  my  former  letter  to  you,  was  gross 
enough ;  but  that  and  all  others  are  exceeded  by  the 


Correspondence  3°9 

impudence  and  falsehood  of  the  printed  extract  you 
sent  me  from  Ralph's  paper.  That  a  continuance 
of  the  embargo  for  two  months  longer  would  have 
prevented  our  war;  that  the  non-importation  law 
which  succeeded  it  was  a  wise  and  powerful  measure, 
I  have  constantly  maintained.  My  friendship  for 
Mr.  Madison,  my  confidence  in  his  wisdom  and  virtue, 
and  my  approbation  of  all  his  measures,  and  espe- 
cially of  his  taking  up  at  length  the  gauntlet  against 
England,  is  known  to  all  with  whom  I  have  ever 
conversed  or  corresponded  on  these  measures.  The 
word  federal,  or  its  synonyma  lie,  may  therefore  be 
written  under  every  word  of  Mr.  Ralph's  paragraph. 
I  have  ransacked  my  memory  to  recollect  any  inci- 
dent which  might  have  given  couiitenance  to  any 
particle  of  it,  but  I  find  none.  For  if  you  will  except 
the  bringing  into  power  and  importance  those  who 
were  enemies  to  himself  as  well  as  to  the  principles 
of  republican  government,  I  do  not  recollect  a  single 
measure  of  the  President  which  I  have  not  approved. 
Of  those  under  him,  and  of  some  very  near  him,  there 
have  been  many  acts  of  which  we  have  all  disap- 
proved, and  he  more  than  we.  We  have  at  times 
dissented  from  the  measures,  and  lamented  the  dila- 
toriness  of  Congress.  I  recollect  an  instance  the  first 
winter  of  the  war,  when,  from  sloth  of  proceedings, 
an  embargo  was  permitted  to  run  through  the  winter, 
while  the  enemy  could  not  cruise,  nor  consequently 
restrain  the  exportation  of  our  whole  produce,  and 
was  taken  off  in  the  spring,  as  soon  as  they  could 


3IQ  Jefferson's  Works 

resume  their  stations.  But  this  procrastination  is 
unavoidable.  How  can  expedition  be  expected  from 
a  body  which  we  have  saddled  with  an  hundred  law- 
yers, whose  trade  is  talking?  But  lies,  to  sow  divi- 
sion among  us,  is  so  stale  an  artifice  of  the  federal 
prints,  and  are  so  well  understood,  that  they  need 
neither  contradiction  nor  explanation.  As  to  my- 
self, my  confidence  in  the  wisdom  and  integrity  of 
the  administration  is  so  entire,  that  I  scarcely  notice 
what  is  passing,  and  have  almost  ceased  to  read 
newspapers.  Mine  remain  in  our  post  office  a  week 
or  ten  days,  sometimes,  unasked  for.  I  find  more 
amusement  in  studies  to  which  I  was  always  more 
attached,  and  from  which  I  was  dragged  by  the 
events  of  the  times  in  which  I  have  happened  to  live. 
I  rejoice  exceedingly  that  our  war  with  England 
was  single-handed.  In  that  of  the  Revolution,  we 
had  France,  Spain,  and  Holland  on  our  side,  and  the 
credit  of  its  success  was  given  to  them.  On  the  late 
occasion,  unprepared  and  unexpecting  war,  we  were 
compelled  to  declare  it,  and  to  receive  the  attack  of 
England,  just  issuing  from  a  general  war,  fully  armed, 
and  freed  from  all  other  enemies,  and  have  not  only 
made  her  sick  of  it,  but  glad  to  prevent,  by  peace, 
the  capture  of  her  adjacent  possessions,  which  one 
or  two  campaigns  more  would  infallibly  have  made 
ours.  She  has  found  that  we  can  do  her  more  injury 
than  any  other  enemy  on  earth,  and  henceforward 
will  better  estimate  the  value  of  our  peace.  But 
whether  her  government  has  power,  in  opposition 


Correspondence  311 

to  the  aristocracy  of  her  navy,  to  restrain  their 
piracies  within  the  limits  of  national  rights,  may 
well  be  doubted.  I  pray,  therefore,  for  peace,  as 
best  for  all  the  world,  best  for  us,  and  best  for  me, 
who  have  already  lived  to  see  three  wars,  and  now 
pant  for  nothing  more  than  to  be  permitted  to  depart 
in  peace.  That  you  also,  who  have  longer  to  live, 
may  continue  to  enjoy  this  blessing  with  health  and 
prosperity,  through  as  long  a  life  as  you  desire,  is  the 
prayer  of  yours  affectionately. 

P.  S.  June  the  \\th. — Before  I  had  sent  my  letter 
to  the  post  office,  I  received  the  new  treaty  of  the 
allied  powers,  declaring  that  the  French  nation  shall 
not  have  Bonaparte,  and  shall  have  Louis  XVIII. 
for  their  ruler.  They  are  all  then  as  great  rascals 
as  Bonaparte  himself.  While  he  was  in  the  wrong, 
I  wished  him  exactly  as  much  success  as  would  an- 
swer our  purposes,  and  no  more.  Now  that  they  are 
wrong  and  he  in  the  right,  he  shall  have  all  my  prayers 
for  success,  and  that  he  may  dethrone  every  man  of 
them. 


TO    JAMES    MAURY. 

Monticello,  June  15,   1815. 

I  congratulate  you,  my  dear  and  ancient  friend, 
on  the  return  of  peace,  and  the  restoration  of  inter- 
course between  our  two  countries.  What  has  passed 
may  be  a  lesson  to  both  of  the  injury  which  either 


3 1 2  Jeff  ersori's y  Works 

can  do  the  other,  and  the  peace  now  opened  may 
show  what  would  be  the  value  of  a  cordial  friendship ; 
and  I  hope  the  first  moments  of  it  will  be  employed 
to  remove  the  stumbling  block  which  must  otherwise 
keep  us  eternal  enemies.  I  mean  the  impressment 
of  our  citizens.  This  was  the  sole  object  of  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  late  war,  which  the  repeal  of  the 
orders  of  council  would  otherwise  have  ended  at  its 
beginning.  If  according  to  our  estimates,  England 
impressed  into  her  navy  6,000  of  our  citizens,  let  her 
count  the  cost  of  the  war,  and  a  greater  number  of 
men  lost  in  it,  and  she  will  find  this  resource  for  man- 
ning her  navy  the  most  expensive  she  can  adopt,  each 
of  these  men  having  cost  her  ^30,000  sterling,  and  a 
man  of  her  own  besides.  On  that  point  we  have 
thrown  away  the  scabbard,  and  the  moment  an 
European  war  brings  her  back  to  this  practice,  adds 
us  again  to  her  enemies.  But  I  hope  an  arrange- 
ment is  already  made  on  this  subject.  Have  you  no 
statesmen  who  can  look  forward  two  or  three  score 
years  ?  It  is  but  forty  years  since  the  battle  of  Lex- 
ington. One-third  of  those  now  living  saw  that  day, 
when  we  were  about  two  millions  of  people,  and  have 
lived  to  see  this,  when  we  are  ten  millions.  One- 
third  of  those  now  living,  who  see  us  at  ten  millions, 
will  live  another  forty  years,  and  see  us  forty  millions; 
and  looking  forward  only  through  such  a  portion 
of  time  as  has  passed  since  you  and  I  were  scan- 
ning Virgil  together,  (which  I  believe  is  near  three 
score  years,)  we  shall  be  seen  to  have  a  population 


Correspondence  313 

of  eighty  millions,  and  of  not  more  than  double  the 
average  density  of  the  present.     What  may  not  such 
a  people  be  worth  to  England  as  customers  and 
friends?    and  what  might  she  not  apprehend  from 
such  a  nation  as  enemies?     Now,  what  is  the  price 
we  ask  for  our  friendship?     Justice,  and  the  comity 
usually  observed  between  nation  and  nation.    Would 
there  not  be  more  of  dignity  in  this,  more  character 
and  satisfaction,  than  in  her  teasings  and  harassings, 
her  briberies  and  intrigues,   to  sow  party  discord 
among  us,  which  can  never  have  more  effect  here 
than  the  opposition  within  herself  has  there;   which 
can  never  obstruct  the  begetting  children,  the  effi- 
cient source  of  growth;   and  by  nourishing  a  deadly 
hatred,  will  only  produce  and  hasten  events  which 
both  of  us,  in  moments  of  sober  reflection,  should 
deplore  and  deprecate.     One-half  of   the  attention 
employed  in  decent  observances  towards  our  govern- 
ment, would  be  worth  more  to  her  than  all  the  Yan- 
kee duperies  played  off  upon  .her,  at  a  great  expense 
on  her  part  of  money  and  meanness,  and  of  nourish- 
ment to  the  vices  and  treacheries  of  the  Henrys  and 
Hulls  of  both  nations.     As  we  never  can  be  at  war 
with  any  other  nation,  (for  no  other  nation  can  get 
at  us  but  Spain,  and  her  own  people  will  manage  her,) 
the  idea  may  be  generated  that  we  are  natural  ene- 
mies, and  a  calamitous  one  it  will  be  to  both.     I  hope 
in  God  her  government  will  come  to  a  sense  of  this, 
and  will  see  that  honesty  and  interest  are  as  inti- 
mately connected  in  the  public  as  in  the  private  code 


3J4  Jefferson's  Works 

of  morality.     Her  ministers  have  been  weak  enough 
to  believe  from  the  newspapers  that  Mr.  Madison 
and  myself  are  personally  her  enemies.     Such  an 
idea  is  unworthy  a  man  of  sense ;   as  we  should  have 
been  unworthy  our  trusts  could  we  have  felt  such  a 
motive  of  public  action.     No  two  men  in  the  United 
States  have  more  sincerely  wished  for  cordial  friend- 
ship with  her;   not  as  her  vassals  or  dirty  partisans, 
but  as  members  of  co-equal  States,  respecting  each 
other,  and  sensible  of  the  good  as  well  as  the  harm 
each  is  capable  of  doing  the  other.     On  this  ground 
there  was  never  a  moment  we  did  not  wish  to  em- 
brace her.     But  repelled  by  their  aversions,  feeling 
their  hatred  at  every  point  of  contact,  and  justly 
indignant   at   its .  supercilious   manifestations,    that 
happened    which    has    happened,  that    will   follow 
which  must  follow,  in  progressive  ratio,  while  such 
dispositions  continue  to  be  indulged.     I  hope  they 
will  see  this,  and  do  their  part  towards  healing  the 
minds  and  cooling  the  temper  of  both  nations.     The 
irritation  here  is  great  and  general,  because  the  mode 
of  warfare  both  on  the  maritime  and  inland  frontiers 
has  been  most  exasperating.     We  perceive  the  Eng- 
lish passions  to  be  high  also,  nourished  by  the  news- 
papers, that  first  of  all  human  contrivances  for  gen- 
erating war.     But  it  is  the  office  of  the  rulers  on  both 
sides  to  rise  above  these  vulgar  vehicles  of  passion; 
to  assuage  angry  feelings,  and  by  examples  and  ex- 
pressions of  mutual  regard  in  their  public  intercourse, 
to  lead  their  citizens  into  good  temper  with  each 


Correspondence  3  *  5 

other.  No  one  feels  more  indignation  than  myself 
when  reflecting  on  the  insults  and  injuries  of  that 
country  to  this.  But  the  interests  of  both  require 
that  these  should  be  left  to  history,  and  in  the  mean- 
time be  smothered  in  the  living  mind.  I  have  indeed 
little  personal  concern  in  it.  Time  is  drawing  her 
curtain  on  me.  But  I  should  make  my  bow  with 
more  satisfaction,  if  I  had  more  hope  of  seeing  our 
countries  shake  hands  together  cordially.  In  this 
sentiment  I  am  sure  you  are  with  me,  and  this  assur- 
ance must  apologize  for  my  indulging  myself  in 
expressing  it  to  you,  with  that  of  my  constant  and 
affectionate  friendship  and  respect. 


TO    JAMES    MAURY. 

Monticello,  June  16,   1815. 

My  Dear  Sir, — Just  as  I  was  about  to  close  my 
preceding  letter,  yours  of  April  29th  is  put  into  my 
hands,  and  with  it  the  papers  your  kindness  forwards 
to  me.  I  am  glad  to  see  in  them  expressions  of 
regard  for  our  friendship  and  intercourse  from  one 
side  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament.  But  I  would 
rather  have  seen  them  from  the  other,  if  not  from 
both.  What  comes  from  the  opposition  is  under- 
stood to  be  the  converse  of  the  sentiments  of  the 
government,  and  we  would  not  there,  as  they  do  here, 
give  up  the  government  for  the  opposition.  The 
views  of  the  Prince  and  his  ministers  are  unfortu- 
nately to  be  taken  from  the  speech  of  Earl  Bathurst, 


3l6  Jefferson's  Works 

in  one  of  the  papers  you  sent  me.  But  what  is  in- 
comprehensible to  me  is  that  the  Marquis  of  Welles- 
ley,  advocating  us,  on  the  ground  of  opposition,  says 
that  "  the  aggression  which  led  to  the  war,  was  from 
the  United  States,  not  from  England."  Is  there  a 
person  in  the  world  who,  knowing  the  circumstances, 
thinks  this?  The  acts  which  produced  the  war  were, 
ist,  the  impressment  of  our  citizens  by  their  ships 
of  war,  and,  2d,  the  orders  of  council  forbidding  our 
vessels  to  trade  with  any  country  but  England,  with- 
out going  to  England  to  obtain  a  special  license.  On 
the  first  subject  the  British  minister  declared  to  our 
charge,  Mr.  Russel,  that  this  practice  of  their  ships 
of  war  would  not  be  discontinued,  and  that  no  ad- 
missible arrangement  could  be  proposed;  and  as  to 
the  second,  the  Prince  Regent,  by  his  proclamation 
of  April  21st,  181 2,  declared  in  effect  solemnly  that 
he  would  not  revoke  the  orders  of  council  as  to  us,  on 
the  ground  that  Bonaparte  had  revoked  his  decrees 
as  to  us;  that,  on  the  contrary,  we  should  continue 
under  them  until  Bonaparte  should  revoke  as  to  all 
the  world.  These  categorical  and  definite  answers 
put  an  end  to  negotiation,  and  were  a  declaration  of 
a  continuance  of  the  war  in  which  they  had  already 
taken  from  us  one  thousand  ships  and  six  thousand 
seamen.  We  determined  then  to  defend  ourselves, 
and  to  oppose  further  hostilities  by  war  on  our  side 
also.  Now,  had  we  taken  one  thousand  British  ships 
and  six  thousand  of  her  seamen  without  any  declara- 
tion of  war,  would  the  Marquis  of  Wellesley  have 


Correspondence  3 : 7 

considered  a  declaration  of  war  by  Great  Britain  as 
an  aggression  on  her  part  ?  They  say  we  denied  their 
maritime  rights.  We  never  denied  a  single  one.  It 
was  their  taking  our  citizens,  native  as  well  as  natu- 
ralized, for  which  we  went  into  war,  and  because  they 
forbade  us  to  trade  with  any  nation  without  entering 
and  paying  duties  in  their  ports  on  both  the  outward 
and  inward  cargo.  Thus  to  carry  a  cargo  of  cotton 
from  Savannah  to  St.  Mary's,  and  take  returns  in 
fruits,  for  example,  our  vessel  was  to  go  to  England, 
enter  and  pay  a  duty  on  her  cotton  there,  return  to 
St.  Mary's,  then  go  back  to  England  to  enter  and  pay 
a  duty  on  her  fruits,  and  then  return  to  Savannah, 
after  crossing  the  Atlantic  four  times,  and  paying 
tributes  on  both  cargoes  to  England,  instead  of  the 
direct  passage  of  a  few  hours.  And  the  taking  ships 
for  not  doing  this,  the  Marquis  says,  is  no  aggression. 
However,  it  is  now  all  over,  and  I  hope  forever  over. 
Yet  I  should  have  had  more  confidence  in  this,  had 
the  friendly  expressions  of  the  Marquis  come  from 
the  ministers  of  the  Prince.  On  the  contrary,  we 
see  them  scarcely  admitting  that  the  war  ought  to 
have  been  ended.  Earl  Bathurst  shuffles  together 
chaotic  ideas  merely  to  darken  and  cover  the  views 
of  the  ministers  in  protracting  the  war;  the  truth 
being,  that  they  expected  to  give  us  an  exemplary 
scourging,  to  separate  from  us  the  States  east  of  the 
Hudson,  take  for  their  Indian  allies  those  west  of  the 
Ohio,  placing  three  hundred  thousand  American  citi- 
zens under  the  government  of  the  savages,  and  tg 


3 1 8  Jefferson's  Works 

leave  the  residuum  a  powerless  enemy,  if  not  sub- 
missive subjects.  I  cannot  conceive  what  is  the  use 
of  your  Bedlam  when  such  men  are  out  of  it.  And 
yet  that  such  were  their  views  we  have  evidence, 
under  the  hand  of  their  Secretary  of  State  in  Henry's 
case,  and  of  their  Commissioners  at  Ghent.  Even 
now  they  insinuate  the  peace  in  Europe  has  not  sus- 
pended the  practices  which  produced  the  war.  I 
trust,  however,,  they  are  speaking  a  different  lan- 
guage to  our  ministers,  and  join  in  the  hope  you 
express  that  the  provocations  which  occasioned  the 
late  rupture  will  not  be  repeated.  The  interruption 
of  our  intercourse  with  England  has  rendered  us  one 
essential  service  in  planting,  radically  and  firmly, 
coarse  manufactures  among  us.  I  make  in  my 
family  two  thousand  yards  of  cloth  a  year,  which 
I  formerly  bought  from  England,  and  it  only  em- 
ploys a  few  women,  children  and  invalids,  who  could 
do  little  on  the  farm.  The  State  generally  does  the 
same,  and  allowing  ten  yards  to  a  person,  this  amounts 
to  ten  millions  of  yards;  and  if  we  are  about  the 
medium  degree  of  manufacturers  in  the  whole  Union, 
as  I  believe  we  are,  the  whole  will  amount  to  one 
hundred  millions  of  yards  a  year,  which  will  soon 
reimburse  us  the  expenses  of  the  war.  Carding 
machines  in  every  neighborhood,  spinning  machines 
in  large  families  and  wheels  in  the  small,  are  too  radi- 
cally established  ever  to  be  relinquished.  The  finer 
fabrics  perhaps,  and  even  probably,  will  be  sought 
again  in  Europe,  except  broadcloth,  which  the  vast 


Correspondence  3 19 

multiplication  of  merinos  among  us  will  enable  us 
to  make  much  cheaper  than  can  be  done  in  Europe. 

Your  practice  of  the  cold  bath  thrice  a  week  during 
the  winter,  and  at  the  age  of  seventy,  is  a  bold  one, 
which  I  should  not,  a  priori,  have  pronounced  salu- 
tary. But  all  theory  must  yield  to  experience,  and 
every  constitution  has  its  own  laws.  I  have  for  fifty 
years  bathed  my  feet  in  cold  water  every  morning 
(as  you  mention),  and  having  been  remarkably  ex- 
empted from  colds  (not  having  had  one  in  every 
seven  years  of  my  life  on  an  average),  I  have  sup- 
posed it  might  be  ascribed  to  that  practice.  When 
we  see  two  facts  accompanying  one  another  for  a 
long  time,  we  are  apt  to  suppose  them  related  as 
cause  and  effect. 

Our  tobacco  trade  is  strangely  changed.  We  no 
longer  know  how  to  fit  the  plant  to  the  market. 
Differences  of  from  four  to  twelve  dollars  the  hun- 
dred are  now  made  on  qualities  appearing  to  us 
entirely  whimsical.  The  British  orders  of  council 
had  obliged  us  to  abandon  the  culture  generally ;  we 
are  now,  however,  returning  to  it,  and  experience 
will  soon  decide  what  description  of  lands  may  con- 
tinue it  to  advantage.  Those  which  produce  the 
qualities  under  seven  or  eight  dollars,  must,  I  think, 
relinquish  it  finally.  Your  friends  here  are  well  as 
far  as  I  have  heard.  So  I  hope  you  are;  and  that 
you  may  continue  so  as  long  as  you  shall  think  the 
continuance  of  life  itself  desirable,  is  the  prayer  of 
yours  sincerely  and  affectionately. 


32°  Jefferson's  Works 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  June  20,   181 5. 

Dear  Sir, — The  fit  of  recollection  came  upon  both 
of  us  so  nearly  at  the  same  time,  that  I  may,  some 
time  or  other,  begin  to  think  there  is  something  in 
Priestley's  and  Hartley's  vibrations.  The  day  be- 
fore yesterday  I  sent  to  the  post  office  a  letter  to  you, 
and  last  night  I  received  your  kind  favor  of  the  10th. 

The  question  before  the  human  race  is,  whether 
the  God  of  Nature  shall  govern  the  world  by  His  own 
laws,  or  whether  priests  and  kings  shall  rule  it  by 
fictitious  miracles?  Or,  in  other  words,  whether 
authority  is  originally  in  the  people  ?  or  whether  it  has 
descended  for  1800  years  in  a  succession  of  popes  and 
bishops,  or  brought  down  from  heaven  by  the  Holy 
Ghost  in  the  form  of  a  dove,  in  a  phial  of  holy  oil? 

Who  shall  take  the  side  of  God  and  Nature? 
Brahmans?  Mandarins?  Druids?  or  Tecumseh  and 
his  brother  the  prophet?  Or  shall  we  become  dis- 
ciples of  the  Philosophers?  And  who  are  the  Phi- 
losophers? Frederic?  Voltaire?  Rousseau?  Buffon? 
Diderot?  or  Condorcet?  These  philosophers  have 
shown  themselves  as  incapable  of  governing  man- 
kind, as  the  Bourbons  or  the  Guelphs.  Condorcet 
has  let  the  cat  out  of  the  bag.  He  has  made  pre- 
cious confessions.  I  regret  that  I  have  only  an  Eng- 
lish translation  of  his  "  Outlines  of  an  Historical 
View  of  the  Progress  of  the  Human  Mind."  But  in 
pages  247,  248,  and  249,  you  will  find  it  frankly 


Correspondence  3 2 1 

acknowledged,  that  the  philosophers  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  adopted  all  the  maxims,  and  prac- 
ticed all  the  arts  of  the  Pharisees,  the  ancient  priests 
of  all  countries,  the  Jesuits,  the  Machiavellians,  etc., 
etc.,  to  overthrow  the  institutions  that  such  arts  had 
established.  This  new  philosophy  was,  by  his  own 
account,  as  insidious,  fraudulent,  hypocritical,  and 
cruel,  as  the  old  policy  of  the  priests,  nobles,  and 
kings.  When  and  where  were  ever  found,  or  will 
be  found,  sincerity,  honesty,  or  veracity,  in  any  sect 
or  party  in  religion,  government,  or  philosophy? 
Johnson  and  Burke  were  more  of  Catholics  than 
Protestants  at  heart,  and  Gibbon  became  an  advo- 
cate for  the  Inquisition. 

There  is  no  act  of  uniformity  in  the  Church,  or 
State,  philosophic.  As  many  sects  and  systems 
among  them,  as  among  Quakers  and  Baptists. 
Bonaparte  will  not  revive  Inquisitions,  Jesuits  or 
slave  trade,  for  which  habitudes  the  Bourbons  have 
been  driven  again  into  exile. 

We  shall  get  along,  with  or  without  war.  I  have 
at  last  procured  the  Marquis  D'Argens'  Occellus, 
Timseus,  and  Julian.  Three  such  volumes  I  never 
read.  They  are  a  most  perfect  exemplification  of 
Condorcet's  previous  confessions.  It  is  astonishing 
they  have  not  made  more  noise  in  the  world.  Our 
Athanasians  have  printed  in  a  pamphlet  in  Boston, 
your  letters  and  Priestley's  from  Belsham's  Lindsey. 
It  will  do  you  no  harm.  Our  correspondence  shall 
not  again  be  so  long  interrupted.     Affectionately. 

VOL.  XIV — 21 


322  Jfeff erseif  s  Works 

Mrs.  Adams  thanks  Mr.  Jefferson  for  his  friendly 
remembrance  of  her,  and  reciprocates  to  him  a  thou- 
sand good  wishes. 

P.  S.  Ticknor  and  Gray  were  highly  delighted 
with  their  visit;  charmed  with  the  whole  family. 
Have  you  read  Carnot?  Is  it  not  afflicting  to  see  a 
man  of  such  large  views,  so  many  noble  sentiments, 
and  such  exalted  integrity,  groping  in  the  dark  for  a 
remedy,  a  balance,  or  a  mediator  between  independ- 
ence and  despotism?  How  shall  his  "love  of  coun- 
try," "his  honor,"  and  his  "national  spirit,"  be  pro- 
duced? 

I  cannot  write  a  hundredth  part  of  what  I  wish  to 
say  to  you. 


JOHN    ADAMS   TO   THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  June  22,   181 5. 

Dear  Sir, — Can  you  give  me  any  information 
concerning  A.  G.  Camus?  Is  he  a  Chateaubriand? 
or  a  Marquis  D'Argens?  Does  he  mean  to  abolish 
Christianity?  or  to  restore  the  Inquisition,  the 
Jesuits,  the  Pope  and  the  Devil? 

Within  a  few  days  I  have  received  a  thing  as  un- 
expected to  me  as  an  apparition  from  the  dead: 
Rapport  a  l'lnstitut  National.  Par  A.  G.  Camus, 
imprim£  par  ordre  de  l'lnstitut,  Pluviose  An  XI. 

In  page  55  of  this  report,  he  says,  "  Certain  pieces 
which  I  found  in  the  chamber  of  accounts  in  Brussels, 


Correspondence  323 

gave  me  useful  indications  concerning  the  grand  col- 
lection of  the  Bollandists ;  and  conducted  me  to  make 
researches  into  the  state  of  that  work,  unfortunately 
interrupted  at  this  day.  It  would  add  to  the  Insti- 
tute to  propose  to  government  the  means  of  com- 
pleting it ;  as  it  has  done  with  success  for  the  collec- 
tion of  the  historians  of  France,  of  diplomas  and  ordi- 
nances.1" 

Permit  me  to  dwell  a  few  minutes  on  this  important 
work. 

' 'Almost  all  the  history  of  Europe,  and  a  part  of 
that  of  the  east,  from  the  seventh  century  to  the  thir- 
teenth, is  in  the  lives  of  personages  to  whom  have 
been  given  the  title  of  Saints.  Every  one  may  have 
remarked,  that  in  reading  history,  there  is  no  event 
of  any  importance,  in  civil  order,  in  which  some 
Bishop,  some  Abbe,  some  Monk,  or  some  Saint,  did 
not  take  a  part.  It  is,  therefore,  a  great  service,  ren- 
dered by  the  Jesuits  (known  under  the  name  of  the 
Bollandists)  to  those  who  would  write  history,  to  have 
formed  the  immense  collection,  extended  to  fifty-two 
volumes  in  folio,  known  under  the  title  of  the  Acts  of 

1  "  The  Committee  of  the  Institute,  for  proposing  and  superintend- 
ing the  literary  labors,  in  the  month  of  Frimaire,  An  XI.,  wrote  to  the 
Minister  of  the  Interior,  requesting  him  to  give  orders  to  the  Prefect  of 
the  Dyle,  and  to  the  Prefect  of  the  Two  Nithes,  to  summon  the  citizens 
De  Bue,  Fonson,  Heyten,  and  all  others  who  had  taken  any  part  in  the 
sequel  of  the  work  of  the  Bollandists,  to  confer  with  these  persons,  as 
well  concerning  the  continuation  of  this  work,  as  concerning  the  cession 
of  the  materials  destined  for  the  continuation  of  it ;  to  promise  to  the 
continuators  of  the  Bollandists  the  support  of  the  French  government, 
and  to  render  an  account  of  their  conferences." 


324  Jefferson's  Works 

the  Saints.  The  service  they  have  rendered  to  liter- 
ature is  considerably  augmented  by  the  insertion,  in 
their  Acts  of  the  Saints,  of  a  great  number  of  diplomas 
and  dissertations,  the  greatest  part  of  which  are 
models  of  criticism.  There  is  no  man,  among  the 
learned,  who  does  not  interest  himself  in  this  great 
collection.  My  intention  is  not  to  recall  to  your 
recollection  the  original  authors,  or  their  first  labors. 
We  may  easily  know  them  by  turning  over  the  leaves 
of  the  collection,  or  if  we  would  find  the  result  already 
written,  it  is  in  the  Historical  Library  of  Mensel, 
T.  i,  part  i,  p.  306,  or  in  the  Manual  of  Literary 
History,  by  Bougine,  T.  2,  p.  641. 

"  I  shall  date  what  I  have  to  say  to  you  only  from 
the  epoch  of  the  suppression  of  the  society,  of  which 
the  Bollandists  were  members. 

"At  that  time,  three  Jesuits  were  employed  in  the 
collection  of  the  Acts  of  the  Saints;  to  wit,  the 
Fathers  De  Bie,  De  Bue,  and  Hubens.  The  Father 
Gesquiere,  who  had  also  labored  at  the  Acts  of  the 
Saints,  reduced  a  particular  collection,  entitled  Select 
Fragments  from  Belgical  Writers,  and  extracts  or 
references  to  matters  contained  in  a  collection  en- 
titled Museum  of  Bellarmine.  These  four  monks 
inhabited  the  house  of  the  Jesuits  at  Antwerp.  In- 
dependently of  the  use  of  the  library  of  the  convent, 
the  Bollandists  had  their  particular  library,  the  most 
important  portion  of  which  was  a  state  of  the  Lives 
of  the  Saints  for  every  day  of  the  month,  with  indica- 
tions of  the  books  in  which  were  found  those  which 


Correspondence  325 

were  already  printed,  and  the  original  manuscripts, 
or  the  copies  of  manuscripts,  which  were  not  yet 
printed.  They  frequently  quote  this  particular  col- 
lection in  their  general  collection.  The  greatest  part 
of  the  copies  they  had  assembled,  were  the  fruit  of  a 
journey  of  the  Fathers  Papebroch  and  Henshen, 
made  to  Rome  in  1660.  They  remained  there  till 
1662.  Papebroch  and  his  associate  brought  from 
Rome  copies  of  seven  hundred  Lives  of  Saints,  in 
Greek  or  in  Latin.  The  citizen  La  Serna  has  in  his 
library  a  copy,  taken  by  himself,  from  the  originals, 
of  the  relation  of  the  journey  of  Papebroch  to  Rome, 
and  of  the  correspondence  of  Henshen  with  his  col- 
leagues. The  relation  and  the  correspondence  are 
in  Latin.     See  Catalogue  de  la  Serna,  T.  3,  N.  3903. 

'  'After  the  suppression  of  the  Jesuits,  the  com- 
missioners apposed  their  seals  upon  the  library  of 
the  Bollandists,  as  well  as  on  that  of  the  Jesuits  of 
Antwerp.  But  Mr.  Girard,  then  Secretary  of  the 
Academy  at  Brussels,  who  is  still  living,  and  who 
furnished  me  a  part  of  the  documents  I  use,  charged 
with  the  inventory  and  sale  of  the  books,  withdrew 
those  of  the  Bollandists,  and  transported  them  to 
Brussels. 

"The  Academy  of  Brussels  proposed  to  continue 
the  Acts  of  the  Saints  under  its  own  name,  and  for 
this  purpose  to  admit  the  four  Jesuits  into  the  num- 
ber of  its  members.  The  Father  Gesquiere  alone 
consented  to  this  arrangement.  The  other  Jesuits 
obtained  of  government,  through  the  intervention 


3  2 6  Jeff ef son's  Works 

of  the  Bishop  of  Newstadt,  the  assurance,  that  they 
might  continue  their  collection.  In  effect,  the  Em- 
press Maria  Theresa  approved,  by  a  decree  of  the 
19th  of  June,  1778,  a  plan  which  was  presented  to 
her,  for  the  continuation  of  the  works,  both  by  the 
Bollandists  and  of  Gesquiere.  This  plan  is  in  ample 
detail.  It  contains  twenty  articles,  and  would  be 
useful  to  consult,  if  any  persons  should  resume  the 
Acts  of  the  Saints.  The  establishment  of  the  Jesuits 
was  fixed  in  the  Abbey  of  Candenberg,  at  Brussels; 
the  library  of  the  Bollandists  was  transported  to  that 
place ;  one  of  the  monks  of  the  Abbey  was  associated 
with  them;  and  the  Father  Hubens  being  dead,  was 
replaced  by  the  Father  Berthod,  a  Benedictin,  who 
died  in  17  89 .  The  Abbey  of  Candenberg  having  been 
suppressed,  the  government  assigned  to  the  Bolland- 
ists a  place  in  the  ancient  College  of  the  Jesuits,  at 
Brussels.  They  there  placed  their  library,  and  went 
there  to  live.  There  they  published  the  fifty-first 
volume  of  their  collection  in  1786,  the  fifth  tome  of 
the  month  of  October,  printed  at  Brussels,  at  the 
printing  press  Imperial  and  Royal,  (in  typis  Ccesario 
regiis.)  They  had  then  two  associates,  and  they 
flattered  themselves  that  the  Emperor  would  con- 
tinue to  furnish  the  expense  of  their  labors.  Never- 
theless, in  1788,  the  establishment  of  the  Bollandists 
was  suppressed,  and  they  even  proposed  to  sell  the 
stock  of  the  printed  volumes;  but,  by  an  instruction 
(Avis)  of  the  6th  of  December,  1788,  the  ecclesiastical 
commission  superseded  the  sale,  till  the  result  could 


Correspondence  3 2  7 

be  known  of  a  negotiation  which  the  Father  De  Bie 
had  commenced  with  the  Abb6  of  St.  Blaise,  to  estab- 
lish the  authors,  and  transport  the  stock  of  the  work, 
as  well  as  the  materials  for  its  continuation  at  St. 
Blaise. 

"  In  the  meantime,  the  Abby  of  Tongerloo  offered 
the  government  to  purchase  the  library  and  stock  of 
the  Bollandists,  and  to  cause  the  work  to  be  con- 
tinued by  the  ancient  Bollandists,  with  the  monks  of 
Tongerloo  associated  with  them.  These  proposi- 
tions were  accepted.  The  Fathers  De  Bie,  De  Bue, 
and  Gesqufeire,  removed  to  Tongerloo;  the  monks 
of  Candenberg  refused  to  follow  them,  though  they 
had  been  associated  with  them.  On  the  entry  of 
the  French  troops  into  Belgium,  the  monks  of  Ton- 
gerloo quitted  their  Abby;  the  Fathers  De  Bie,  and 
Gesquiere,  retired  to  Germany,  where  they  died;  the 
Father  De  Bue  retired  to  the  City  Hall,  heretofore 
Province  of  Hainault,  his  native  country.  He  lives, 
but  is  very  aged.  One  of  the  monks  of  Tongerloo, 
who  had  been  associated  with  them,  is  the  Father 
Heylen;  they  were  not  able  to  inform  me  of  the  place 
of  his  residence.  Another  monk  associated  with  the 
Bollandists  of  1780,  is  the  Father  Fonson,  who  re- 
sides at  Brussels. 

"In  the  midst  of  these  troubles,  the  Bollandists 
have  caused  to  be  printed  the  fifty-second  volume 
of  the  Acts  of  the  Saints,  the  sixth  volume  of  the 
month  of  October.  The  fifty-first  volume  is  not 
common  in  commerce,  because  the  sale  of  it  has  been 


328  Jefferson's  Works 


o 


interrupted  by  the  continual  changes  of  the  resi- 
dence of  the  Bollandists.  The  fifty-second  volume, 
or  the  sixth  of  the  same  month  of  October,  is  much 
more  rare.     Few  persons  know  its  existence. 

"  The  citizen  La  Serna  has  given  me  the  two  hun- 
dred and  ninety-six  first  pages  of  the  volume,  which 
he  believes  were  printed  at  Tongerloo.  He  is  per- 
suaded that  the  rest  of  the  volume  exists,  and  he 
thinks  it  was  at  Rome  that  it  was  finished  (termine) . 

"The  citizen  De  Herbonville,  Prefect  of  the  two 
Niths  at  Antwerp,  has  made,  for  about  eighteen 
months,  attempts  with  the  ancient  Bollandists,  to 
engage  them  to  resume  their  labors.  They  have  not 
had  success.  Perhaps  the  present  moment  would 
be  the  most  critical,  (opportune,)  especially  if  the 
government  should  consent  to  give  to  the  Bolland- 
ists assurance  of  their  safety. 

"  The  essential  point  would  be  to  make  sure  of  the 
existence  of  the  manuscripts  which  I  have  indicated ; 
and  which,  by  the  relation  of  the  citizen  La  Serna, 
filled  a  body  of  a  library  of  about  three  toises  in 
length,  and  two  in  breadth.  If  these  manuscripts 
still  exist,  it  is  easy  to  terminate  the  Acts  of  the 
Saints;  because  we  shall  have  all  the  necessary 
materials.  If  these  manuscripts  are  lost,  we  must 
despair  to  see  this  collection  completed. 

"  I  have  enlarged  a  little  on  this  digression  on  the 
Acts  of  the  Saints,  because  it  is  a  work  of  great  im- 
portance; and  because  these  documents,  which  can- 
not be  obtained  with  any  exactitude  but  upon  the 


Correspondence  329 

spots,  seem  to  me  to  be  among  the  principal  objects 
which  your  travellers  have  to  collect,  and  of  which 
they  ought  to  give  you  an  account." 

Now,  my  friend  Jefferson!  I  await  your  observa- 
tions on  this  morsel.  You  may  think  I  waste  my 
time  and  yours.  I  do  not  think  so.  If  you  will  look 
into  the  "  Nouveau  Dictionnaire  Historique,"  under 
the  words  "  Bollandus,  Heinshernius,  and  Pape- 
brock,"  you  will  find  more  particulars  of  the  rise  and 
progress  of  this  great  work,  "  The  Acts  of  the  Saints. " 

I  shall  make  only  an  observation  or  two. 

i.  The  Pope  never  suppressed  the  work,  and  Maria 
Theresa  established  it.  It  therefore  must  be'  Catho- 
lic. 

2.  Notwithstanding  the  professions  of  the  Bolland- 
ists,  to  discriminate  the  true  from  the  false  miracles, 
and  the  dubious  from  both,  I  suspect  that  the  false 
will  be  found  the  fewest,  the  dubious  the  next,  and 
the  true  the  most  numerous  of  all. 

3.  From  all  that  I  have  read,  of  the  legends,  of  the 
lives,  and  writings  of  the  Saints,  and  even  of  the 
Fathers,  and  of  ecclesiastical  history  in  general,  I 
have  no  doubt  that  the  Acta  Sanctorum  is  the  most 
enormous  mass  of  lies,  frauds,  hypocrisy,  and  im- 
posture, that  ever  was  heaped  together  on  this  globe. 
If  it  were  impartially  consulted,  it  would  do  more  to 
open  the  eyes  of  mankind,  than  all  the  philosophers 
of  the  1 8th  century,  who  were  as  great  hypocrites 
as  any  of  the  philosophers  or  theologians  of  antiquity. 


33°  Jefferson's  Works 


TO  MONSIEUR  CORREA  DE  SERRA. 

i  Monticello,  June  28,  1815. 

Dear  Sir, — When  I  learned  that  you  proposed  to 
give  a  course  of  Botanical  lectures  in  Philadelphia, 
I  feared  it  would  retard  the  promised  visit  to  Monti- 
cello.  On  my  return  from  Bedford,  however,  on 
the  4th  instant,  I  received  a  letter  from  M.  Dupont 
flattering  me  with  the  prospect  that  he  and  yourself 
would  be  with  us  as  soon  as  my  return  should  be 
known.  I,  therefore,  in  the  instant  wrote  him  of  my 
return,  and  my  hope  of  seeing  you  both  shortly.  I 
am  still  without  that  pleasure,  but  not  without  the 
hope.  Europe  has  been  a  second  time  turned  topsy- 
turvy since  we  were  together;  and  so  many  things 
have  happened  there  that  I  have  lost  my  compass. 
As  far  as  we  can  judge  from  appearances,  Bonaparte, 
from  being  a  mere  military  usurper,  seems  to  have 
become  the  choice  of  his  nation;  and  the  allies  in 
their  turn,  the  usurpers  and  spoliators  of  the  Euro- 
pean world.  The  right  of  nations  to  self-govern- 
ment being  my  polar  star,  my  partialities  are  steered 
by  it,  without  asking  whether  it  is  a  Bonaparte  or 
an  Alexander  towards  whom  the  helm  is  directed. 
Believing  that  England  has  enough  on  her  hands 
without  us,  and  therefore  has  by  this  time  settled 
the  question  of  impressment  with  Mr.  Adams,  I  look 
on  this  new  conflict  of  the  European  gladiators,  as 
from  the  higher  forms  of  the  amphitheatre,  wonder- 
ing that  man,  like  the  wild  beasts  of  the  forest,  should 


Correspondence  331 

permit  himself  to  be  led  by  his  keeper  into  the  arena, 
the  spectacle  and  sport  of  the  lookers  on.  Nor  do  I 
see  the  issue  of  this  tragedy  with  the  sanguine  hopes 
of  our  friend  M.  Dupont.  I  fear,  from  the  experi- 
ence of  the  last  twenty-five  years,  that  morals  do  not 
of  necessity  advance  hand  in  hand  with  the  sciences. 
These,  however,  are  speculations  which  may  be  ad- 
journed to  our  meeting  at  Monticello,  where  I  will 
continue  to  hope  that  I  may  receive  you  with  our 
friend  Dupont,  and  in  the  meantime  repeat  the  assur- 
ances of  my  affectionate  friendship  and  respect. 


TO    MADAME    LA    BARONNE    DE    STAEL-HOLSTEIN. 

Monticello,  July  3,  1815. 
Dear  Madam, — I  considered  your  letter  of  Novem- 
ber 10th,  1 2th,  as  an  evidence  of  the  interest  you  were 
so  kind  as  to  take  in  the  welfare  of  the  United  States, 
and  I  was  even  flattered  by  your  exhortations  to 
avoid  taking  any  part  in  the  war  then  raging  in  Eu- 
rope, because  they  were  a  confirmation  of  the  policy 
I  had  myself  pursued,  and  which  I  thought  and  still 
think  should  be  the  governing  canon  of  our  republic. 
Distance,  and  difference  of  pursuits,  of  interests,  of 
connections  and  other  circumstances,  prescribe  to 
us  a  different  system,  having  no  object  in  common 
with  Europe,  but  a  peaceful  interchange  of  mutual 
comforts  for  mutual  wants.  But  this  may  not  always 
depend  on  ourselves ;  and  injuries  may  be  so  accumu- 
lated by  an  European  power,  as  to  pass  all  bounds  of 


332  TeHerson's^Works 

wise  forbearance.  This  was  our  situation  at  the  date- 
of  your  letter.  A  long  course  of  injuries,  systematic- 
ally pursued  by  England,  and  finally,  formal  declara- 
tions that  she  would  neither  redress  nor  discontinue 
their  infliction,  had  fixed  the  epoch  which  rendered 
an  appeal  to  arms  unavoidable.  In  the  letter  of 
May  28th,  18 1 3,  which  I  had  the  honor  of  writing 
you,  I  entered  into  such  details  of  these  injuries,  and 
of  our  unremitting  endeavors  to  bring  them  to  a 
peaceable  end,  as  the  narrow  limits  of  a  letter  per- 
mitted. Resistance  on  our  part  at  length  brought 
our  enemy  to  reflect,  to  calculate,  and  to  meet  us  in 
peaceable  conferences  at  Ghent;  but  the  extrava- 
gance of  the  pretensions  brought  forward  by  her 
negotiators  there,  when  first  made  known  in  the 
United  States,  dissipated  at  once  every  hope  of  a 
just  peace,  and  prepared  us  for  a  war  of  utter  ex- 
tremity. Our  government,  in  that  state  of  things, 
respecting  the  opinion  of  the  world,  thought  it  a  duty 
to  present  to  it  a  justification  of  the  course  which 
was  likely  to  be  forced  upon  us;  and  with  this  view 
the  pamphlet  was  prepared  which  I  now  enclose.  It 
was  already  printed,  when  (instead  of  their  ministers 
whom  they  hourly  expected  from  a  fruitless  nego- 
tiation) they  received  the  treaty  of  pacification 
signed  at  Ghent  and  ratified  at  London.  They  en- 
deavored to  suppress  the  pamphlet  as  now  unreason- 
able— but  the  proof  sheets  having  been  surrepti- 
tiously withdrawn,  soon  made  their  appearance  in 
the  public  papers,  and  in  the  form  now  sent.     This 


Correspondence  333 

vindication  is  so  exact  in  its  facts,  so  cogent  in  its 
reasonings,  so  authenticated  by  the  documents  to 
which  it  appeals,  that  it  cannot  fail  to  bring  the 
world  to  a  single  opinion  on  our  case.  The  concern 
you  manifested  on  our  entrance  into  this  contest, 
assures  me  you  will  take  the  trouble  of  reading  it; 
which  I  wish  the  more  earnestly,  because  it  will  fully 
explain  the  very  imperfect  views  which  my  letter  had 
presented;  and  because  we  cannot  be  indifferent  as 
to  the  opinion  which  yourself  personally  shall  ulti- 
mately form  of  the  course  we  have  pursued. 

I  learned  with  great  pleasure  your  return  to  your 
native  country.  It  is  the  only  one  which  offers  ele- 
ments of  society  analogous  to  the  powers  of  your 
mind,  and  sensible  of  the  nattering  distinction  of 
possessing  them.  It  is  true  that  the  great  events 
which  made  an  opening  for  your  return,  have  been 
reversed.  But  not  so,  I  hope,  the  circumstances 
which  may  admit  its  continuance.  On  these  events 
I  shall  say  nothing.  At  our  distance,  we  hear  too 
little  truth  and  too  much  falsehood  to  form  correct 
judgments  concerning  them;  and  they  are  moreover 
foreign  to  our  umpirage.  We  wish  the  happiness 
and  prosperity  of  every  nation;  we  did  not  believe 
either  of  these  promoted  by  the  former  pursuits  of 
the  present  ruler  of  France,  and  hope  that  his  return, 
if  the  nation  wills  it  to  be  permanent,  may  be  marked 
by  those  changes  which  the  solid  good  of  his  own 
country,  and  the  peace  and  well-being  of  the  world, 
may  call  for.     But  these  things  I  leave  to  whom  they 


334  Jeffersonls;  Works 

belong;  the  object  of  this  letter  being  only  to  convey 
to  you  a  vindication  of  my  own  country,  and  to  have 
the  honor  on  a  new  occasion  of  tendering  you  the 
homage  of  my  great  consideration,  and  respectful 
attachment. 


TO    ANDREW    C.    MITCHELL,    ESQ. 

Monticello,  July  16,  1815. 
I  thank  you,  Sir,  for  the  pamphlet  which  you  have 
been  so  kind  as  to  send  me.  I  have  read  it  with 
attention  and  satisfaction.  It  is  replete  with  sound 
views,  some  of  which  will  doubtless  be  adopted. 
Some  may  be  checked  by  difficulties.  None  more 
likely  to  be  so  than  the  proposition  to  amend  the 
Constitution,  so  as  to  authorize  Congress  to  tax  ex- 
ports. The  provision  against  this  in  the  framing  of 
that  instrument,  was  a  sine  qua  non  with  the  States 
of  peculiar  productions,  as  rice,  indigo,  cotton  and 
tobacco,  to  which  may  now  be  added  sugar.  A 
jealousy  prevailing  that  to  the  few  States  producing 
these  articles,  the  justice  of  the  others  might  not  be 
a  sufficient  protection  in  opposition  to  their  interest, 
they  moored  themselves  to  this  anchor.  Since  the 
hostile  dispositions  lately  manifested  by  the  Eastern 
States,  they  would  be  less  willing  than  before  to  place 
themselves  at  their  mercy;  and  the  rather,  as  the 
Eastern  States  have  no  exports  which  can  be  taxed 
equivalently.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  this  dif- 
ficulty might  be  got  over;   but  the  subject  looking 


Correspondence  335 

forward  beyond  my  time,  I  leave  it  to  those  to  whom 
its  burdens  and  benefits  will  belong,  adding  only 
my  prayers  for  whatever  may  be  best  for  our  coun- 
try, and  assurances  to  yourself  of  my  great  respect. 


TO    WILLIAM    WIRT,    ESQ. 

MONTICELLO,    AugUSt    5,    1815. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  July  24th  came  to  hand 
on  the  31st,  and  I  will  proceed  to  answer  your  in- 
quiries in  the  order  they  are  presented  as  far  as  I  am 
able. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  the  fifth  of  the  Rhode  Island 
resolutions  of  which  you  have  sent  me  a  copy,  is 
exactly  the  one  erased  from  our  journals.  The  Mr. 
Lees,  and  especially  Richard  Henry,  who  was  indus- 
trious, had  a  close  correspondence,  I  know,  with  the 
two  Adamses,  and  probably  with  others  ^n  that  and 
the  other  Eastern  States;  and  I  think  it  was  said  at 
the  time  that  copies  were  sent  off  by  them  to  the 
northward  the  very  evening  of  the  day  on  which  they 
were  passed.  I  can  readily  enough  believe  these 
resolutions  were  written  by  Mr.  Henry  himself.  They 
bear  the  stamp  of  his  mind,  strong  without  precision. 
That  they  were  written  by  Johnson  who  seconded 
them,  was  only  the  rumor  of  the  day,  and  very  possi- 
bly unfounded.  But  how  Edmund  Randolph  should 
have  said  they  were  written  by  William  Fleming,  and 
Mr.  Henry  should  have  written  that  he  showed  them 
to   William   Fleming,    is   to   me   incomprehensible. 


336  Jefferson's^  Works 

There  was  no  William  Fleming  then  but  the  judge 
now  living,  whom  nobody  will  ever  suspect  of  taking 
the  lead  in  rebellion.  I  am  certain  he  was  not  then 
a  member,  and  I  think  was  never  a  member  until  the 
Revolution  had  made  some  progress.  Of  this,  how- 
ever, he  will  inform  us  with  candor  and  truth.  His 
eldest  brother,  John  Fleming,  was  a  member,  and  a 
great  speaker  in  debate.  To  him  they  may  have 
been  shown.  Yet  I  should  not  have  expected  this, 
because  he  was  extremely  attached  to  Robinson, 
Peyton  Randolph,  etc.,  and  at  their  beck,  and  had 
no  independence  or  boldness  of  mind.  However, 
he  was  attentive  to  his  own  popularity,  might  have 
been  overruled  by  views  to  that,  and  without  cor- 
rection of  the  Christian  name,  Mr.  Henry's  note  is 
sufficient  authority  to  suppose  he  took  the  popular 
side  on  that  occasion.  I  remember  nothing  to  the 
contrary.  The  opposers  of  the  resolutions  were  Rob- 
inson, Peyton  Randolph,  Pendleton,  Wythe,  Bland, 
and  all  the  cyphers  of  the  aristocracy.  No  longer 
possessing  the  journals,  I  cannot  recollect  nominally 
the  others.  They  opposed  them  on  the  ground  that 
the  same  principles  had  been  expressed  in  the  peti- 
tion, etc.,  of  the  preceding  year,  to  which  an  answer, 
not  yet  received,  was  daily  expected,  that  they  were 
therein  expressed  in  more  conciliatory  terms,  and 
therefore  more  likely  to  have  good  effect.  The  reso- 
lutions were  carried  chiefly  by  the  vote  of  the  middle 
and  upper  country.  To  state  the  differences  between 
the  classes  of  society  and  the  lines  of  demarkation 


Correspondence  33  7 

which  separated  them,  would  be  difficult.  The  law, 
you  know,  admitted  none  except  as  to  the  twelve 
counsellors.  Yet  in  a  country  insulated  from  the 
European  world,  insulated  from  its  sister  colonies, 
with  whom  there  was  scarcely  any  intercourse,  little 
visited  by  foreigners,  and  having  little  matter  to  act 
upon  within  itself,  certain  families  had  risen  to  splen- 
dor by  wealth  and  the  preservation  of  it  from  genera- 
tion to  generation  under  the  law  entails;  some  had 
produced  a  series  of  men  of  talents ;  families  in  gen- 
eral had  remained  stationary  on  the  grounds  of  their 
forefathers,  for  there  was  no  emigration  to  the  west- 
ward in  those  days.  The  wild  Irish,  who  had  gotten 
possession  of  the  valley  between  the  Blue  Ridge  and 
North  Mountain,  forming  a  barrier  over  which  none 
ventured  to  leap,  and  would  still  less  venture  to  settle 
among.  In  such  a  state  of  things,  scarcely  admitting 
any  change  of  station,  society  would  settle  itself  down 
into  several  strata,  separated  by  no  marked  lines,  but 
shading  off  imperceptibly  from  top  to  bottom,  noth- 
ing disturbing  the  order  of  their  repose.  There  were 
then  aristocrats,  half-breeds,  pretenders,  a  solid  inde- 
pendent yeomanry,  looking  askance  at  those  above, 
yet  not  venturing  to  jostle  them,  and  last  and  lowest, 
a  seculum  of  beings  called  overseers,  the  most  abject, 
degraded  and  unprincipled  race,  always  cap  in  hand 
to  the  Dons  who  employed  them,  and  furnishing 
materials  for  the  exercise  of  their  pride,  insolence 
and  spirit  of  domination.  Your  characters  are  in- 
imitably and  justly  drawn.     I  am  not  certain  if  more 

VOL.   XIV 22 


33&  Jefferson's  Works 

might  not  be  said  of  Colonel  Richard  Bland.  He 
was  the  most  learned  and  logical  man  of  those  who 
took  prominent  lead  in  public  affairs,  profound  in 
constitutional  lore,  a  most  ungraceful  speaker,  (as 
were  Peyton  Randolph  and  Robinson,  in  a  remark- 
able degree.)  He  wrote  the  first  pamphlet  on  the 
nature  of  the  connection  with  Great  Britain  which 
had  any  pretension  to  accuracy  of  view  on  that  sub- 
ject, but  it  was  a  singular  one.  He  would  set  out  on 
sound  principles,  pursue  them  logically  till  he  found 
them  leading  to  the  precipice  which  he  had  to  leap, 
start  back  alarmed,  then  resume  his  ground,  go  over 
it  in  another  direction,  be  led  again  by  the  correct- 
ness of  his  reasoning  to  the  same  place,  and  again 
back  about,  and  try  other  processes  to  reconcile  right 
and  wrong,  but  finally  left  his  reader  and  himself 
bewildered  between  the  steady  index  of  the  compass 
in  their  hand,  and  the  phantasm  to  which  it  seemed 
to  point.  Still  there  was  more  sound  matter  in  his 
pamphlet  than  in  the  celebrated  Farmer's  letters, 
which  were  really  but  an  ignis  fatuus,  misleading 
us  from  true  principles. 

Landon  Carter's  measure  you  may  take  from  the 
first  volume  of  the  American  Philosophical  trans- 
actions, where  he  has  one  or  more  long  papers  on  the 
weavil,  and  perhaps  other  subjects.  His  speeches, 
like  his  writings,  were  dull,  vapid,  verbose,  egotisti- 
cal, smooth  as  the  lullaby  of  the  nurse,  and  com- 
manding, like  that,  the  repose  only  of  the  hearer. 

You  ask  if  you  may  quote  me,  first,  for  the  loan 


Correspondence  339 

office;  second,  Philips' case;  and  third,  the  addresses 
prepared  for  Congress  by  Henry  and  Lee.  For  the 
two  first  certainly,  because  within  my  own  knowl- 
edge, especially  citing  the  record  in  Philips'  case, 
which  of  itself  refutes  the  diatribes  published  on  that 
subject;  but  not  for  the  addresses,  because  I  was  not 
present,  nor  know  anything  relative  to  them  but  by 
hearsay  from  others.  My  first  and  principal  infor- 
mation on  that  subject  I  know  I  had  from  Ben  Har- 
rison, on  his  return  from  the  first  session  of  the  old 
Congress.  Mr.  Pendleton,  also,  I  am  tolerably  cer- 
tain, mentioned  it  to  me;  but  the  transaction  is  too 
distant,  and  my  memory  too  indistinct,  to  hazard  as 
with  precision,  even  what  I  think  I  heard  from  them. 
In  this  decay  of  memory  Mr.  Edmund  Randolph 
must  have  suffered  at  a  much  earlier  period  of  life 
than  myself.  I  cannot  otherwise  account  for  his 
saying  to  you  that  Robert  Carter  Nicholas  came  into 
the  legislature  only  on  the  death  of  Peyton  Ran- 
dolph, which  was  in  1776.  Seven  years  before  that 
period,  I  went  first  into  the  legislature  myself,  to 
wit:  in  1769,  and  Mr.  Nicholas  was  then  a  member, 
and  I  think  not  a  new  one.  I  remember  it  from  an 
impressive  circumstance.  It  was  the  first  assembly 
of  Lord  Botetourt,  being  called  on  his  arrival.  On 
receiving  the  Governor's  speech,  it  was  usual  to  move 
resolutions  as  heads  for  an  address.  Mr.  Pendleton 
asked  me  to  draw  the  resolutions,  which  I  did.  They 
were  accepted  by  the  house,  and  Pendleton,  Nicholas, 
myself  and  some  others,  were  appointed  a  committee 


340  Jeffersorfs/Worlcs 

to  prepare  the  address.  The  committee  desired  me 
to  do  it,  but  when  presented  it  was  thought  to  pursue 
too  strictly  the  diction  of  the  resolutions,  and  that 
their  subjects  were  not  sufficiently  amplified.  Mr. 
Nicholas  chiefly  objected  to  it,  and  was  desired  by 
the  committee  to  draw  one  more  at  large,  which  he 
did  with  amplification  enough,  and  it  was  accepted. 
Being  a  young  man  as  well  as  a  young  member,  it 
made  on  me  an  impression  proportioned  to  the  sensi- 
bility of  that  time  of  life.  On  a  similar  occasion 
some  years  after,  I  had  reason  to  retain  a  remem- 
brance of  his  presence  while  Peyton  Randolph  was 
living.  On  the  receipt  of  Lord  North's  propositions, 
in  May  or  June,  1775,  Lord  Dunmore  called  the 
assembly.  Peyton  Randolph,  then  President  of 
Congress  and  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Burgesses, 
left  the  former  body  and  came  home  to  hold  the 
assembly,  leaving  in  Congress  the  other  delegates 
who  were  the  ancient  leaders  of  our  house.  He  there- 
fore asked  me  to  prepare  the  answer  to  Lord  North's 
propositions,  which  I  did.  Mr.  Nicholas,  whose  mind 
had  as  yet  acquired  no  tone  for  that  contest,  com- 
bated the  answer  from  alpha  to  omega,  and  succeeded 
in  diluting  it  in  one  or  two  small  instances.  It  was 
firmly  supported,  however,  in  committee  of  the  whole, 
by  Peyton  Randolph,  who  had  brought  with  him  the 
spirit  of  the  body  over  which  he  had  presided,  and  it 
was  carried,  with  very  little  alteration,  by  strong 
majorities.  I  was  the  bearer  of  it  myself  to  Con- 
gress, by  whom,  as  it  was  the  first  answer  given  to 


Correspondence  34 1 

those  propositions  by  any  legislature,  it  was  received 
with  peculiar  satisfaction.  I  am  sure  that  from 
1769,  if  not  earlier,  to  1775,  you  will  find  Mr.  Nicho- 
las' name  constantly  in  the  journals,  for  he  was  an 
active  member.  I  think  he  represented  James  City 
county.  Whether  on  the  death  of  Peyton  Randolph 
he  succeeded  him  for  Williamsburg,  I  do  not  know. 
If  he  did,  it  may  account  for  Mr.  Randolph's  error. 

You  ask  some  account  of  Mr.  Henry's  mind, 
information  and  manners  in  i759~'6o,  when  I  first 
became  acquainted  with  him.  We  met  at  Nathan 
Dandridge's,  in  Hanover,  about  the  Christmas  of  that 
winter,  and  passed  perhaps  a  fortnight  together  at 
the  revelries  of  the  neighborhood  and  season.  His 
manners  had  something  of  the  coarseness  of  the 
society  he  had  frequented;  his  passion  was  fiddling, 
dancing  and  pleasantry.  He  excelled  in  the  last,  and 
it  attached  every  one  to  him.  The  occasion  perhaps, 
as  much  as  his  idle  disposition,  prevented  his  engag- 
ing in  any  conversation  which  might  give  the  measure 
either  of  his  mind  or  information.  Opportunity  was 
not  wanting,  because  Mr.  John  Campbell  was  there, 
who  had  married  Mrs.  Spots  wood,  the  sister  of  Colonel 
Dandridge.  He  was  a  man  of  science,  and  often  in- 
troduced conversations  on  scientific  subjects.  Mr. 
Henry  had  a  little  before  broke  up  his  store,  or  rather 
it  had  broken  him  up,  and  within  three  months  after 
he  came  to  Williamsburg  for  his  license,  and  told  me, 
I  think,  he  had  read  law  not  more  than  six  weeks.  I 
have  by  this  time,  probably,  tired  you  with  these  old 


342  Jefferson  Ts  Works 

histories,  and  shall,  therefore,  only  add  the  assurance 
of  my  great  friendship  and  respect. 


TO    JOHN    ADAMS. 
MONTICELLO,    AugUSt    IO,    1815. 

Dear  Sir, — The  simultaneous  movements  in  our 
correspondence  have  been  remarkable  on  several 
occasions.  It  would  seem  as  if  the  state  of  the  air, 
or  state  of  the  times,  or  some  other  unknown  cause, 
produced  a  sympathetic  effect  on  our  mutual  recol- 
lections. I  had  sat  down  to  answer  your  letters  of 
June  the  19th,  20th  and  2 2d,  with  pen,  ink  and  paper 
before  me,  when  I  received  from  our  mail  that  of  July 
the  30th.  You  ask  information  on  the  subject  of 
Camus.  All  I  recollect  of  him  is,  that  he  was  one  of 
the  deputies  sent  to  arrest  Dumourier  at  the  head  of 
his  army,  who  were,  however,  themselves  arrested  by 
Dumourier,  and  long  detained  as  prisoners.  I  pre- 
sume, therefore,  he  was  a  Jacobin.  You  will  find  his 
character  in  the  most  excellent  revolutionary  history 
of  Toulongeon.  I  believe,  also,  he  may  be  the  same 
person  who  has  given  us  a  translation  of  Aristotle's 
Natural  History,  from  the  Greek  into  French.  Of 
his  report  to  the  National  Institute  on  the  subject 
of  the  Bollandists,  your  letter  gives  me  the  first  in- 
formation. I  had  supposed  them  defunct  with  the 
Society  of  Jesuits,  of  which  they  were;  and  that  their 
works,  although  above  ground,  were,  from  their  bulk 
and  insignificance,  as  effectually  entombed  on  their 


Correspondence  343 

shelves,  as  if  in  the  graves  of  their  authors.  Fifty- 
two  volumes  in  folio,  of  the  Acta  Sanctorum,  in  dog- 
Latin,  would  be  a  formidable  enterprise  to  the  most 
laborious  German.  I  expect,  with  you,  they  are  the 
most  enormous  mass  of  lies,  frauds,  hypocrisy  and 
imposture,  that  was  ever  heaped  together  on  this 
globe.  By  what  chemical  process  M.  Camus  sup- 
posed that  an  extract  of  truth  could  be  obtained 
from  such  a  farrago  of  falsehood,  I  must  leave  to 
the  chemists  and  moralists  of  the  age  to  divine. 

On  the  subject  of  the  history  of  the  American  Rev- 
olution, you  ask  who  shall  write  it?  Who  can  write 
it  ?  And  who  will  ever  be  able  to  write  it  ?  Nobody ; 
except  merely  its  external  facts;  all  its  councils, 
designs  and  discussions  having  been  conducted  by 
Congress  with  closed  doors,  and  no  members,  as  far 
as  I  know,  having  even  made  notes  of  them.  These, 
which  are  the  life  and  soul  of  history,  must  forever 
be  unknown.  Botta,  as  you  observe,  has  put  his 
own  speculations  and  reasonings  into  the  mouths  of 
persons  whom  he  names,  but  who,  you  and  I  know, 
never  made  such  speeches.  In  this  he  has  followed 
the  example  of  the  ancients,  who  made  their  great 
men  deliver  long  speeches,  all  of  them  in  the  same 
style,  and  in  that  of  the  author  himself.  The  work 
is  nevertheless  a  good  one,  more  judicious,  more 
chaste,  more  classical,  and  more  true  than  the  party 
diatribe  of  Marshall.  Its  greatest  fault  is  in  having 
taken  too  much  from  him.  I  possessed  the  work, 
and  often  recurred  to  considerable  portions  of  it, 


344  Jefferson's  Works 

although  I  never  read  it  through.  But  a  very 
judicious  and  well-informed  neighbor  of  mine  went 
through  it  with  great  attention,  and  spoke  very 
highly  of  it.  I  have  said  that  no  member  of  the  old 
Congress,  as  far  as  I  knew,  made  notes  of  the  discus- 
sion. I  did  not  know  of  the  speeches  you  mention 
of  Dickinson  and  Witherspoon.  But  on  the  ques- 
tions of  Independence,  and  on  the  two  Articles  of 
Confederation  respecting  taxes  and  votings,  I  took 
minutes  of  the  heads  of  the  arguments.  On  the  first, 
I  threw  all  into  one  mass,  without  ascribing  to  the 
speakers  their  respective  arguments;  pretty  much 
in  the  manner  of  Hume's  summary  digests  of  the 
reasonings  in  Parliament  for  and  against  a  measure. 
On  the  last,  I  stated  the  heads  of  the  arguments  used 
by  each  speaker.  But  the  whole  of  my  notes  on  the 
question  of  Independence  does  not  occupy  more  than 
five  pages,  such  as  of  this  letter;  and  on  the  other 
questions,  two  such  sheets.  They  have  never  been 
communicated  to  any  one.  Do  you  know  that  there 
exists  in  manuscript  the  ablest  work  of  this  kind  ever 
yet  executed;  of  the  debates  of  the  constitutional 
convention  of  Philadelphia  in  1788?  The  whole  of 
everything  said  and  done  there  was  taken  down  by 
Mr.  Madison,  with  a  labor  and  exactness  beyond 
comprehension. 

I  presume  that  our  correspondence  has  been  ob- 
served at  the  post  offices,  and  thus  has  attracted 
notice.  Would  you  believe,  that  a  printer  has  had 
the  effrontery  to  propose  to  me  the  letting  him  pub- 


Correspondence  345 

lish  it?  These  people  think  they  have  a  right  to 
everything,  however  secret  or  sacred.  I  had  not 
before  heard  of  the  Boston  pamphlet  with  Priestley's 
letters  and  mine. 

At  length  Bonaparte  has  got  on  the  right  side  of 
a  question.  From  the  time  of  his  entering  the  legis- 
lative hall  to  his  retreat  to  Elba,  no  man  has  exe- 
crated him  more  than  myself.  I  will  not  except  even 
the  members  of  the  Essex  Junto;  although  for  very 
different  reasons;  I,  because  he  was  warring  against 
the  liberty  of  his  own  country,  and  independence  of 
others;  they,  because  he  was  the  enemy  of  England, 
the  Pope,  and  the  Inquisition.  But  at  length,  and 
as  far  as  we  can  judge,  he  seems  to  have  become  the 
choice  of  his  nation.  At  least,  he  is  defending  the 
cause  of  his  nation,  and  that  of  all  mankind,  the 
rights  of  every  people  to  independence  and  self-gov- 
ernment. He  and  the  allies  have  now  changed  sides. 
They  are  parceling  out  among  themselves  Poland, 
Belgium,  Saxony,  Italy,  dictating  a  ruler  and  gov- 
ernment to  France,  and  looking  askance  at  our  repub- 
lic, the  splendid  libel  on  their  governments,  and  he 
is  fighting  for  the  principles  of  national  independence, 
of  which  his  whole  life  hitherto  has  been  a  continued 
violation.  He  has  promised  a  free  government  to 
his  own  country,  and  to  respect  the  rights  of  others; 
and  although  his  former  conduct  inspires  little  con- 
fidence in  his  promises,  yet  we  had  better  take  the 
chance  of  his  word  for  doing  right,  than  the  certainty 
of  the  wrong  which  his  adversaries  are  doing  and 


346  Jefferson's  Works 

avowing.     If  they  succeed,  ours  is  only  the  boon  of 
the  Cyclops  to  Ulysses,  of  being  the  last  devoured. 

Present  me  affectionately  and  respectfully  to  Mrs. 
Adams,  and  Heaven  give  you  both  as  much  more 
of  life  as  you  wish,  and  bless  it  with  health  and 
happiness. 

P.  S.  August  the  nth. — I  had  finished  my  letter 
yesterday,  and  this  morning  receive  the  news  of 
Bonaparte's  second  abdication.  Very  well.  For 
him  personally,  I  have  no  feeling  but  reprobation. 
The  representatives  of  the  nation  have  deposed  him. 
They  have  taken  the  allies  at  their  word,  that  they 
had  no  object  in  the  war  but  his  removal.  The  nation 
is  now  free  to  give  itself  a  good  government,  either 
with  or  without  a  Bourbon;  and  France,  unsubdued, 
will  still  be  a  bridle  on  the  enterprises  of  the  com- 
bined powers,  and  a  bulwark  to  others. 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  August  24,   181 5. 

Dear  Sir, — If  I  am  neither  deceived  by  the  little 
information  I  have,  or  by  my  wishes  for  its  truth,  I 
should  say  that  France  is  the  most  Protestant  coun- 
try of  Europe  at  this  time,  though  I  cannot  think  it 
the  most  reformed.  In  consequence  of  these  reveries, 
I  have  imagined  that  Camus  and  the  Institute  meant, 
by  the  revival  and  continuance  of  the  Acta  Sancto- 
rum, to  destroy  the  Pope,  and  the  Catholic  Church 


Correspondence  347 

and  Hierarchies,  de  fonde  en  comble,  or  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Frederick  Pollair,  D'Alembert,  etc.,  "ecraser 
le  miserable" — " Crush  the  wretch."  This  great 
work  must  contain  the  most  complete  history  of  the 
corruptions  of  Christianity  that  has  ever  appeared, 
Priestley's  not  excepted;  and  his  history  of  ancient 
opinions  not  excepted. 

As  to  the  History  of  the  Revolution,  my  ideas  may 
be  peculiar,  perhaps  singular.  What  do  we  mean 
by  the  Revolution?  The  war?  That  was  no  part 
of  the  Revolution.  It  was  only  an  effect,  and  con- 
sequence of  it.  The  revolution  was  in  the  minds  of 
the  people,  and  this  was  effected,  from  1760  to  1775, 
in  the  course  of  fifteen  years,  before  a  drop  of  blood 
was  drawn  at  Lexington.  The  records  of  thirteen 
legislatures,  the  pamphlets,  newspapers,  in  all  the 
colonies  ought  to  be  consulted,  during  that  period, 
to  ascertain  the  steps  by  which  the  public  opinion 
was  enlightened  and  informed,  concerning  the  au- 
thority of  Parliament  over  the  colonies.  The  Con- 
gress of  1774  resembled  in  some  respects,  though  I 
hope  not  in  many,  the  Council  of  Nice  in  ecclesiastical 
history.  It  assembled  the  priests  from  the  east  and 
the  west,  the  north  and  the  south,  who  compared 
notes,  engaged  in  discussions  and  debates,  and  formed 
results  by  one  vote,  and  by  two  votes,  which  went 
out  to  the  world  as  unanimous. 

Mr.  Madison's  Notes  of  the  Convention  of  1787  or 
1788  are  consistent  with  his  indefatigable  character. 
I  shall  never  see  them,  but  I  hope  posterity  will. 


348  Jeff ersorfs  Works 

That  our  correspondence  has  been  observed  is  no 
wonder;  for  your  hand  is  more  universally  known 
than  your  face.  No  printer  has  asked  me  for  copies; 
but  it  is  no  surprise  that  you  have  been  requested. 
These  gentry  will  print  whatever  will  sell;  and  our 
correspondence  is  thought  such  an  oddity  by  both 
parties,  that  the  printers  imagine  an  edition  would 
soon  go  off,  and  yield  them  a  profit.  There  has, 
however,  been  no  tampering  with  your  letters  to  me. 
They  have  all  arrived  in  good  order. 

Poor  Bonaparte!  Poor  Devil!  What  has,  and 
what  will  become  of  him?  Going  the  way  of  King 
Theodore,  Alexander,  Caesar,  Charles  Xllth,  Crom- 
well, Wat  Tyler,  and  Jack  Cade,  i.  e.,  to  a  bad  end. 
And  what  will  become  of  Wellington?  Envied, 
hated,  despised,  by  all  the  barons,  earls,  viscounts, 
marquises,  as  an  upstart,  a  par  venue  elevated  over 
their  heads.  For  these  people  have  no  idea  of  any 
merit,  but  birth.  Wellington  must  pass  the  rest  of 
his  days  buffeted,  ridiculed,  scorned  and  insulted  by 
factions,  as  Marlborough  and  his  Duchess  did.  Mili- 
tary glory  dazzles  the  eyes  of  mankind,  and  for  a 
time  eclipses  all  wisdom  and  virtue,  all  laws,  human 
and  divine;  and  after  this  it  would  be  bathos  to 
descend  to  services  merely  civil  or  political. 

Napoleon  has  imposed  kings  upon  Spain,  Holland, 
Sweden,  Westphalia,  Saxony,  Naples,  etc.  The  com- 
bined emperors  and  kings  are  about  to  retaliate  upon 
France,  by  imposing  a  king  upon  her.  These  are  all 
abominable  examples,  detestable  precedents.    When 


Correspondence  349 

will  the  rights  of  mankind,  the  liberties  and  inde- 
pendence of  nations,  be  respected?  When  the  per- 
fectibility of  the  human  mind  shall  arrive  at  perfec- 
tion. When  the  progress  of  Manillius'  Ratio  shall 
have  not  only  eripuit  ccelo  fulmen,  Jouvisque  fulgores, 
but  made  mankind  rational  creatures. 

It  remains  to  be  seen  whether  the  allies  were  honest 
in  their  declaration  that  they  were  at  war  only  with 
Napoleon. 

Can  the  French  ever  be  cordially  reconciled  to  the 
Bourbons  again?  If  not,  whom  can  they  find  for  a 
head?  the  infant,  or  one  of  the  generals?  Innumer- 
able difficulties  will  embarrass  either  project.  I  am, 
as  ever. 


TO  JUDGE  SPENCER  ROANE. 

Monticello,  October  12,   181 5. 

Dear  Sir, — I  received  in  a  letter  from  Colonel 
Monroe  the  enclosed  paper  communicated,  as  he  said, 
with  your  permission,  and  even  with  a  wish  to  know 
my  sentiments  on  the  important  question  it  dis- 
cusses. It  is  now  more  than  forty  years  since  I  have 
ceased  to  be  habitually  conversant  with  legal  ques- 
tions; and  my  pursuits  through  that  period  have 
seldom  required  or  permitted  a  renewal  of  my  former 
familiarity  with  them.  My  ideas  at  present,  there- 
fore, on  such  questions,  have  no  claim  to  respect  but 
such  as  might  be  yielded  to  the  common  auditors  of 
a  law  argument; 


35°  Jefferson's  Works     • 

I  well  knew  that  in  certain  federal  cases  the  laws 
of  the  United  States  had  given  to  a  foreign  party, 
whether  plaintiff  or,  defendant,  a  right  to  carry  his 
cause  into  the  federal  court ;  but  I  did  not  know  that 
where  he  had  himself  elected  the  State  judicature, 
he  could,  after  an  unfavorable  decision  there,  remove 
his  case  to  the  federal  court,  and  thus  take  the  benefit 
of  two  chances  where  others  have  but  one ;  nor  that 
the  right  of  entertaining  the  question  in  this  case  had 
been  exercised  or  claimed  by  the  federal  judiciary 
after  it  had  been  postponed  on  the  party's  first  elec- 
tion. His  failure,  too,  to  place  on  the  record  the 
particular  ground  which  might  give  jurisdiction 
to  the  federal  court,  appears  to  me  an  additional 
objection  of  great  weight.  The  question  is  of  the 
first  importance.  The  removal  of  it  seems  to  be  out 
of  the  analogies  which  guide  the  two  governments 
on  their  separate  tracts,  and  claims  the  solemn  atten- 
tion of  both  judicatures,  and  of  the  nation  itself.  I 
should  fear  to  make  up  a  final  opinion  on  it,  until  I 
could  see  as  able  a  development  of  the  grounds  of 
the  federal  claim  as  that  which  I  have  now  read 
against  it.  I  confess  myself  unable  to  foresee  what 
those  grounds  would  be.  The  paper  enclosed  must 
call  them  forth,  and  silence  them  too,  unless  they  are 
beyond  my  ken.  I  am  glad,  therefore,  that  the  claim 
is  arrested,  and  made  the  subject  of  special  and  ma- 
ture deliberation.  I  hope  our  courts  will  never  coun- 
tenance the  sweeping  pretensions  which  have  been 
set  up  under  the  words  "  general  defence  and  public 


Correspondence  3  S  * 

welfare."  These  words  only  express  the  motives 
which  induced  the  Convention  to  give  to  the  ordi- 
nary legislature  certain  specified  powers  which  they 
enumerate,  and  which  they  thought  might  be  trusted 
to  the  ordinary  legislature,  and  not  to  give  them  the 
unspecified  also;  or  why  any  specification?  They 
could  not  be  so  awkward  in  language  as  to  mean,  as 
we  say,  "all  and  some."  And  should  this  construc- 
tion prevail,  all  limits  to  the  federal  government  are 
done  away.  This  opinion,  formed  on  the  first  rise  of 
the  question,  I  have  never  seen  reason  to  change, 
whether  in  or  out  of  power;  but,  on  the  contrary, 
find  it  strengthened  and  confirmed  by  five  and  twenty 
years  of  additional  reflection  and  experience:  and 
any  countenance  given  to  it  by  any  regular  organ  of 
the  government,  I  should  consider  more  ominous 
than  anything  which  has  yet  occurred. 

I  am  sensible  how  much  these  slight  observations, 
on  a  question  which  you  have  so  profoundly  con- 
sidered, need  apology.  They  must  find  this  in  my 
zeal  for  the  administration  of  our  government  accord- 
ing to  its  true  spirit,  federal  as  well  as  republican,  and 
in  my  respect  for  any  wish  which  you  might  be  sup- 
posed to  entertain  for  opinions  of  so  little  value.  I 
salute  you  with  sincere  and  high  respect  and  esteem. 


35 2  Jefferson's  Works 


TO  CAPT.  A.  PARTRIDGE  OF  THE  CORPS  OF  ENGINEERS, 
WEST    POINT,    NEW    YORK. 

Monticello,  October  12,  181 5. 
Sir, — I  thank  you  for  the  statement  of  altitudes, 
which  you  have  been  so  kind  as  to  send  me  of  our 
northern  mountains.  It  came  opportunely,  as  I  was 
about  making  inquiries  for  the  height  of  the  White 
Mountains  of  New  Hampshire,  which  have  the  repu- 
tation of  being  the  highest  in  our  maritime  States, 
and  purpose  shortly  to  measure  geometrically  the 
height  of  the  Peaks  of  Otter,  which  I  suppose  the 
highest  from  their  base,  of  any  on  the  east  side  of  the 
Mississippi,  except  the  White  Mountains,  and  not 
far  short  of  their  height,  if  they  are  but  of  4,885  feet. 
The  method  of  estimating  heights  by  the  barometer, 
is  convenient  and  useful,  as  being  ready,  and  furnish- 
ing an  approximation  to  truth.  Of  what  degree  of 
accuracy  it  is  susceptible  we  know  not  as  yet ;  no  cer- 
tain theory  being  established  for  ascertaining  the 
density  and  weight  of  that  portion  of  the  column  of 
atmosphere  contiguous  to  the  mountain;  from  the 
weight  of  which,  nevertheless,  we  are  to  infer  the 
height  of  the  mountain.  The  most  plausible  seems 
to  be  that  which  supposes  the  mercury  of  barometer 
divided  into  horizontal  lamina  of  equal  thickness;  and 
a  similar  column  of  the  atmosphere  into  lamina  of 
equal  weights.  The  former  divisions  give  a  set  of 
arithmetical,  the  latter  of  geometrical  progression- 
als,  which  being  the  character  of  Logarithms  and 


Correspondence  353 

their  numbers,  the  tables  of  these  furnish  ready  com- 
putations, needing,  however,  the  corrections  which 
the  state  of  the  thermometer  calls  for.  It  is  prob- 
able that  in  taking  heights  in  the  vicinity  of  each 
other  in  this  way,  there  may  be  no  considerable  error, 
because  the  passage  between  them  may  be  quick  and 
repeated.  The  height  of  a  mountain  from  its  base, 
thus  taken,  merits,  therefore,  a  very  different  degree 
of  credit  from  that  of  its  height  above  the  level  of 
the  sea,  where  that  is  distant.  According,  for  ex- 
ample, to  the  theory  above  mentioned,  the  height 
of  Monticello  from  its  base  is  580  feet,  and  its  base 
;6io  feet  8  inches,  above  the  level  of  the  ocean;  the 
former,  from  other  facts,  I  judge  to  be  near  the  truth ; 
but  a  knowledge  of  the  different  falls  of  water  from 
hence  to  the  tide- water  at  Richmond,  a  distance  of 
seventy-five  miles,  enables  us  to  say  that  the  whole 
descent  to  that  place  is  but  170  or  180  feet.  From 
thence  to  the  ocean  may  be  a  distance  of  one  hun- 
dred miles;  it  is  all  tide- water,  and  through  a  level 
country.  I  know  not  what  to  conjecture  as  the 
amount  of  descent,  but  certainly  not  435  feet,  as 
that  theory  would  suppose,  nor  the  quarter  part  of 
it.  I  do  not  know  bv  what  rule  General  Williams 
made  his  computations;  he  reckons  the  foot  of  the 
Blue  Ridge,  twenty  miles  from  here,  but  100  feet 
above  the  tide-water  at  Richmond.  We  know  the 
descent,  as  before  observed,  to  be  at  least  170  feet  from 
hence,  to  which  is  to  be  added  that  from  the  Blue 
Ridge  to  this  place,  a  very  hilly  country,  with  con- 


354  Jefferson's  Works 

stant  and  great  waterfalls.  His  estimate,  therefore, 
must  be  much  below  truth.  Results  so  different 
prove  that  for  distant  comparisons  of  height,  the 
barometer  is  not  to  be  relied  on  according  to  any 
theory  yet  known.  While,  therefore,  we  give  a  good 
degree  of  credit  to  the  results  of  operations  between 
the  summit  of  a  mountain  and  its  base,  we  must  give 
less  to  those  between  its  summit  and  the  level  of  the 
ocean. 

I  will  do  myself  the  pleasure  of  sending  you  my 
estimate  of  the  Peaks  of  Otter,  which  I  count  on 
undertaking  in  the  course  of  the  next  month.  In 
the  meantime  accept  the  assurance  of  my  great 
respect. 


TO    DOCTOR   GEORGE    LOGAN. 

Monticello,  October  15,   1815. 

Dear  Sir, — I  thank  you  for  the  extract  in  yours 
of  August  1 6th  respecting  the  Emperor  Alexander. 
It  arrived  here  a  day  or  two  after  I  had  left  this  place, 
from  which  I  have  been  absent  seven  or  eight  weeks. 
I  had  from  other  information  formed  the  most  favor- 
able opinion  of  the  virtues  of  Alexander,  and  con- 
sidered his  partiality  to  this  country  as  a  prominent 
proof  of  them.  The  magnanimity  of  his  conduct  on 
the  first  capture  of  Paris  still  magnified  everything 
we  had  believed  of  him;  but  how  he  will  come  out 
of  his  present  trial  remains  to  be  seen.  That  the  suf- 
ferings which  France  had  inflicted  on  other  countries 


Correspondence  355 

justified  severe  reprisals,  cannot  be  questioned ;  but 
I  have  not  yet  learned  what  crimes  of  Poland,  Sax- 
ony, Belgium,  Venice,  Lombardy  and  Genoa,  had 
merited  for  them,  not  merely  a  temporary  punish- 
ment, but  that  of  permanent  subjugation  and  a  des- 
titution of  independence  and  self-government.  The 
fable  of  Esop  of  the  lion  dividing  the  spoils,  is,  I  fear, 
becoming  true  history,  and  the  moral  code  of  Napo- 
leon and  the  English  government  a  substitute  for 
that  of  Grotius,  of  Puffendorf,  and  even  of  the  pure 
doctrine  of  the  great  author  of  our  own  religion. 
We  were  safe  ourselves  from  Bonaparte,  because  he 
had  not  the  British  fleets  at  his  command.  We  were 
safe  from  the  British  fleets,  because  they  had  Bona- 
parte at  their  back;  but  the  British  fleets  and  the 
conquerors  of  Bonaparte  being  now  combined,  and 
the  Hartford  nation  drawn  off  to  them,  we  have  un- 
common reason  to  look  to  our  own  affairs.  This, 
however,  I  leave  to  others,  offering  prayers  to  heaven, 
the  only  contribution  of  old  age,  for  the  safety  of  our 
country.  Be  so  good  as  to  present  me  affectionately 
to  Mrs.  Logan,  and  to  accept  yourself  the  assurance 
of  my  esteem  and  respect. 


TO    ALBERT    GALLATIN. 

Monticello,  October  16,   1815. 
Dear  Sir, — A  long  absence  from  home  must  apolo- 
gize for  my  so  late  acknowledgment  of  your  welcome 
favor  of  September  6th.     Our  storm  of  the  4th  of  that 


356  Jefferson's  Works 

month  gave  me  great  uneasiness  for  you;  for  I  wa3 
certain  you  must  be  on  the  coast,  and  your  actual 
arrival  was  unknown  to  me.  It  was  such  a  wind  as 
I  have  not  witnessed  since  the  year  1769.  It  did, 
however,  little  damage  with  us,  only  prostrating  our 
corn,  and  tearing  tobacco,  without  essential  injury 
to  either.  It  could  have  been  nothing  compared 
with  that  of  the  23d,  off  the  coast  of  New  England, 
of  which  we  had  not  a  breath,  but  on  the  contrary, 
fine,  fair  weather.  Is  this  the  judgment  of  God  be- 
tween us  ?  I  congratulate  you  sincerely  on  your  safe 
return  to  your  own  country,  and  without  knowing 
your  own  wishes,  mine  are  that  you  would  never 
leave  it  again.  I  know  you  would  be  useful  to  us 
at  Paris,  and  so  you  would  anywhere;  but  nowhere 
so  useful  as  here.  We  are  undone,  my  dear  Sir,  if 
this  banking  mania  be  not  suppressed.  Ant  Car- 
thago, ant  Roma  delenda  est.  The  war,  had  it  pro- 
ceeded, would  have  upset  our  government;  and  a 
new  one,  whenever  tried,  will  do  it.  And  so  it  must 
be  while  our  money,  the  nerve  of  war,  is  much  or 
little,  real  or  imaginary,  as  our  bitterest  enemies 
choose  to  make  it.  Put  down  the  banks,  and  if  this 
country  could  not  be  carried  through  the  longest  war 
against  her  most  powerful  enemy,  without  ever  know- 
ing the  want  of  a  dollar,  without  dependence  on  the 
traitorous  classes  of  her  citizens,  without  bearing 
hard  on  the  resources  of  the  people,  or  loading  the 
public  with  an  indefinite  burden  of  debt,  I  know 
nothing  of  my  countrymen.     Not  by  any  novel  pro- 


Correspondence  357 

ject,  not  by  any  charlatanerie,  but  by  ordinary  and 
well-experienced  means;  by  the  total  prohibition  of 
all  private  paper  at  all  times,  by  reasonable  taxes  in 
war  aided  by  the  necessary  emissions  of  public  paper 
of  circulating  size,  this  bottomed  on  special  taxes, 
redeemable  annually  as  this  special  tax  comes  in,  and 
finally  within  a  moderate  period, — even  with  the 
flood  of  private  paper  by  which  we  were  deluged, 
would  the  treasury  have  ventured  its  credit  in  bills 
of  circulating  size,  as  of  five  or  ten  dollars,  etc.,  they 
would  have  been  greedily  received  by  the  people  in 
preference  to  bank  paper.  But  unhappily  the  towns 
of  America  were  considered  as  the  nation  of  America, 
the  dispositions  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  former  as 
those  of  the  latter,  and  the  treasury,  for  want  of  con- 
fidence in  the  country,  delivered  itself  bound  hand 
and  foot  to  bold  and  bankrupt  adventurers  and  pre- 
tenders to  be  money -holders,  whom  it  could  have 
crushed  at  any  moment.  Even  the  last  half -bold, 
half- timid  threat  of  the  treasury,  showed  at  once  that 
these  jugglers  were  at  the  feet  of  government.  For 
it  never  was,  and  is  not,  any  confidence  in  their  frothy 
bubbles,  but  the  want  of  all  other  medium,  which  in- 
duced, or  now  induces,  the  country  people  to  take 
their  paper;  and  at  this  moment,  when  nothing  else 
is  to  be  had,  no  man  will  receive  it  but  to  pass  it  away 
instantly,  none  for  distant  purposes.  We  are  now 
without  any  common  measure  of  the  value  of  prop- 
erty, and  private  fortunes  are  up  or  down  at  the  will 
of  the  worst  of  our  citizens.     Yet  there  is  no  hope  of 


358  Jefferson's  Works 

relief  from  the  legislatures  who  have  immediate  con- 
trol over  this  subject.  As  little  seems  to  be  known 
of  the  principles  of  political  economy  as  if  nothing 
had  ever  been  written  or  practised  on  the  subject,  or 
as  was  known  in  old  times,  when  the  Jews  had  their 
rulers  under  the  hammer.  It  is  an  evil,  therefore, 
which  we  must  make  up  our  minds  to  meet  and 
to  endure  as  those  of  hurricanes,  earthquakes  and 
other  casualties:  let  us  turn  over  therefore  another 
leaf. 

I  grieve  for  Prance ;  although  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  by  the  afflictions  with  which  she  wantonly  and 
wickedly  overwhelmed  other  nations,  she  has  merited 
severe  reprisals.  For  it  is  no  excuse  to  lay  the  enor- 
mities to  the  wretch  who  led  to  them,  and  who  has 
been  the  author  of  more  misery  and  suffering  to  the 
world,  than  any  being  who  ever  lived  before  him. 
After  destroying  the  liberties  of  his  country,  he  has 
exhausted  all  its  resources,  physical  and  moral,  to 
indulge  his  own  maniac  ambition,  his  own  tyrannical 
and  overbearing  spirit.  His  sufferings  cannot  be  too 
great.  But  theirs  I  sincerely  deplore,  and  what  is 
to  be  their  term?  The  will  of  the  allies?  There  is 
no  more  moderation,  forbearance,  or  even  honesty 
in  theirs,  than  in  that  of  Bonaparte.  They  have 
proved  that  their  object,  like  his,  is  plunder.  They, 
like  him,  are  shuffling  nations  together,  or  into  their 
own  hands,  as  if  all  were  right  which  they  feel  a  power 
to  do.  In  the  exhausted  state  in  which  Bonaparte 
has  left  France,  I  see  no  period  to  her  sufferings,  until 


Correspondence  3  59 

this  combination  of  robbers  fall  together  by  the  ears. 
The  French  may  then  rise  up  and  choose  their  side. 
And  I  trust  they  will  finally  establish  for  themselves 
a  government  of  rational  and  well- tempered  liberty. 
So  much  science  cannot  be  lost;  so  much  light  shed 
over  them  can  never  fail  to  produce  to  them  some 
good,  in  the  end.  Till  then,  we  may  ourselves  fer- 
vently pray,  with  the  liturgy  a  little  parodied,  "  Give 
peace  till  that  time,  oh  Lord,  because  there  is  none 
other  that  will  fight  for  us  but  only  thee,  oh  God." 
It  is  rare  that  I  indulge  in  these  poetical  effusions; 
but  your  former  and  latter  relations  with  both  sub- 
jects have  associated  you  with  them  in  my  mind,  and 
led  me  beyond  the  limits  of  attention  I  ordinarily 
give  to  them.  Whether  you  go  or  stay  with  us,  you 
have  always  the  prayers  of  yours  affectionately. 

P.  S.  The  two  letters  you  enclosed  me  were  from 
Warden  and  De  Lormerie,  and  neither  from  La  Fay- 
ette, as  you  supposed. 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  November  13,   181 5. 

Dear  Sir, — The  fundamental  article  of  my  politi- 
cal creed  is,  that  despotism,  or  unlimited  sovereignty, 
or  absolute  power,  is  the  same  in  a  majority  of  a  pop- 
ular assembly,  an  aristocratical  council,  an  oligarchi- 
cal junto,  and  a  single  emperor;  equally  arbitrary, 
cruel,  bloody,  and  in  every  respect  diabolical. 


36°  Jefferson's  Works 

Accordingly,  arbitrary  power,  wherever  it  has 
resided,  has  never  failed  to  destroy  all  the  records, 
memorials,  and  histories  of  former  times  which  it  did 
not  like,  and  to  corrupt  and  interpolate  such  as  it 
was  cunning  enough  to  preserve  or  tolerate.  We 
cannot  therefore  say  with  much  confidence,  what 
knowledge  or  what  virtues  may  have  prevailed  in 
some  former  ages  in  some  quarters  of  the  world. 

Nevertheless,  according  to  the  few  lights  that 
remain  to  us,  we  may  say  that  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, notwithstanding  all  its  errors  and  vices,  has 
been,  of  all  that  are  past,  the  most  honorable  to 
human  nature.  Knowledge  and  virtues  were  in- 
creased and  diffused.  Arts,  sciences  useful  to  men, 
ameliorating  their  condition,  were  improved  more 
than  in  any  former  equal  period. 

But  what  are  we  to  say  now?  Is  the  nineteenth 
century  to  be  a  contrast  to  the  eighteenth?  Is  it  to 
extinguish  all  the  lights  of  its  predecessors  ?  Are  the 
Sorbonne,  the  Inquisition,  the  Index  Expurgatorius,, 
and  the  knights-errant  of  St.  Ignatius  Loyola  to  be 
revived  and  restored  to  all  their  salutary  powers  of 
supporting  and  propagating  the  mild  spirit  of  Chris- 
tianity ?  The  proceedings  of  the  allies  and  their  Con- 
gress at  Vienna,  the  accounts  from  Spain,  France, 
etc.,  the  Chateaubriands  and  the  Gentis,  indicate 
which  way  the  wind  blows.  The  priests  are  at  their 
old  work  again.  The  Protestants  are  denounced, 
and  another  St.  Bartholomew's  day  threatened. 

This,  however,  will  probably,   twenty-five  years 


Correspondence  3  6 1 

hence,  be  honored  with  the  character  of  "  The 
effusions  of  a  splenetic  mind,  rather  than  as  the  sober 
reflections  of  an  unbiased  understanding.'''  I  have 
received  Memoirs  of  the  Life  of  Dr.  Price,  by  William 
Morgan,  F.R.S.  In  pages  151  and  155  Mr.  Morgan 
says:  "  So  well  assured  was  Dr.  Price  of  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  free  Constitution  in  France,  and  of  the 
subsequent  overthrow  of  despotism  throughout  Eu- 
rope, as  the  consequence  of  it,  that  he  never  failed 
to  express  his  gratitude  to  heaven  for  having  ex- 
tended his  life  to  the  present  happy  period,  in  which 
after  sharing  the  benefits  of  one  revolution,  he  has 
been  spared  to  be  a  witness  to  two  other  revolutions, 
both  glorious.  But  some  of  his  correspondents 
were  not  quite  so  sanguine  in  their  expectations  from 
the  last  of  the  revolutions ;  and  among  these,  the  late 
American  Ambassador,  Mr.  John  Adams.  In  a  long 
letter  which  he  wrote  to  Dr.  Price  at  this  time,  so  far 
from  congratulating  him  on  the  occasion,  he  ex- 
presses himself  in  terms  of  contempt,  in  regard  to 
the  French  Revolution;  and  after  asking  rather  too 
severely  what  good  was  to  be  expected  from  a  nation 
of  Atheists,  he  concluded  with  foretelling  the  destruc- 
tion of  a  million  of  human  beings  as  the  probable  con- 
sequence of  it.  These  harsh  censures  and  gloomy 
predictions  were  particularly  ungrateful  to. Dr.  Price, 
nor  can  it  be  denied  that  they  must  have  then  ap- 
peared as  the  effusions  of  a  splenetic  mind,  rather  than 
as  the  sober  reflections  of  an  unbiased  understanding.' ' 
I  know  now  that  a  candid  public  will  think  of  this 


362  Jefferson's  Works 

practice  of  Mr.  Morgan,  after  the  example  of  Mr. 
Belsham,  who,  finding  private  letters  in  the  cabinet 
of  a  great  and  good  man,  after  his  decease,  written 
in  the  utmost  freedom  and  confidence  of  intimate 
friendship,  by  persons  still  living,  though  after  the 
lapse  of  a  quarter  of  a  century,  produces  them  before 
the  world. 

Dr.  Disney  had  different  feelings  and  a  different 
judgment.  Finding  some  cursory  letters  among  the 
papers  of  Mr.  Hollis,  he  would  not  publish  them  with- 
out my  consent.  In  answer  to  his  request,  I  sub- 
mitted them  to  his  discretion,  and  might  have  done 
the  same  to  Mr.  Morgan;  indeed,  had  Mr.  Morgan 
published  my  letter  entire,  I  should  not  have  given 
him  nor  myself  any  concern  about  it.  But  as  in  his 
summary  he  has  not  done  the  latter  justice,  I  shall 
give  it  with  all  its  faults. 

Mr.  Morgan  has  been  more  discreet  and  com- 
plaisant to  you  than  to  me.  He  has  mentioned 
respectfully  your  letters  from  Paris  to  Dr.  Price,  but 
has  given  us  none  of  them.  As  I  would  give  more 
for  these  letters  than  for  all  the  rest  of  the  book  I 
am  more  angry  with  him  for  disappointing  me,  than 
for  all  he  says  of  me  and  my  letter,  which,  scambling 
as  it  is,  contains  nothing  but  the  sure  words  of 
prophecy.     I  am,  as  usual,  yours. 


Correspondence  363 

TO    WILLIAM    BENTLEY. 

Monticello,  December  28,   181 5. 

Dear  Sir, — At  the  date  of  your  letter  of  October 
30th,  1  had  just  left  home  on  a  journey  from  which 
I  am  recently  returned.  I  had  many  years  ago 
understood  that  Professor  Ebeling  was  engaged  in 
a  geographical  work  which  would  comprehend  the 
United  States,  and  indeed  I  expected  it  was  finished 
and  published.  I  am  glad  to  learn  that  his  can- 
dor and  discrimination  have  been  sufficient  to  guard 
him  against  trusting  the  libel  of  Dr.  Morse  on  this 
State.  I  wish  it  were  in  my  power  to  give  him 
the  aid  you  ask,  but  it  is  not.  The  whole  fore- 
noon with  me  is  engrossed  by  correspondence  too 
extensive  and  laborious  for  my  age.  Health,  habit,, 
and  necessary  attention  to  my  farms,  require  me 
then  to  be  on  horseback  until  a  late  dinner,  and 
the  society  of  my  family  and  friends,  with  some 
reading,  furnish  the  necessary  relaxations  of  the 
rest  of  the  day.  Add  to  this  that  the  cession  of  my 
library  to  Congress  has  left  me  without  materials  for 
such  an  undertaking.  I  wish  the  part  of  his  work 
which  gives  the  geography  of  this  country  may  be 
translated  and  published,  that  ourselves  and  the 
world  may  at  length  have  something  like  a  dispas- 
sionate account  of  these  States.  Poor  human  nature! 
when  we  are  obliged  to  appeal  for  the  truth  of  mere 
facts  from  an  eye-witness  to  one  whose  faculties  for 
discovering  it  are  only  an  honest  candor  and  caution 
in  sifting  the  grain  from  its  chaff! 


364  Jefferson's  Works 

The  Professor's  history  of  Hamburg  is  doubtless 
interesting  and  instructive,  and  valuable  as  a  cor- 
rective of  the  false  information  we  derive  from  news- 
papers. I  should  read  it  with  pleasure,  but  I  fear 
its  transportation  and  return  would  expose  it  to  too 
much  risk.  Notwithstanding  all  the  French  and 
British  atrocities,  which  will  forever  disgrace  the 
present  era  of  history,  their  shameless  prostration 
of  all  the  laws  of  morality  which  constitute  the 
security,  the  peace  and  comfort  of  man — notwith- 
standing the  waste  of  human  life,  and  measure  of 
human  suffering  which  they  have  inflicted  on  the 
world — nations  hitherto  in  slavery  have  descried 
through  all  this  bloody  mist  a  glimmering  of  their 
own  rights,  have  dared  to  open  their  eyes,  and  to  see 
that  their  own  power  and  their  own  will  suffice  for 
their  emancipation.  Their  tyrants  must  now  give 
them  more  moderate  forms  of  government,  and  they 
seem  now  to  be  sensible  of  this  themselves.  Instead 
of  the  parricide  treason'  of  Bonaparte  in  employing 
the  means  confided  to  him  as  a  republican  magistrate 
to  the  overthrow  of  that  republic,  and  establishment 
of  a  military  despotism  in  himself  and  his  descend- 
ants, to  the  subversion  of  the  neighboring  govern- 
ments, and  erection  of  thrones  for  his  brothers,  his 
sisters  and  sycophants,  had  he  honestly  employed 
that  power  in  the  establishment  and  support  of  the 
freedom  of  his  own  country,  there  is  not  a  nation  in 
Europe  which  would  not  at  this  day  have  had  a  more 
rational  government,  one  in  which  the  will  of  the 


Correspondence  36S 

people  should  have  had  a  moderating  and  salutary 
influence.  The  work  will  now  be  longer,  will  swell 
more  rivers  with  blood,  produce  more  sufferings  and 
more  crimes.  But  it  will  be  consummated;  and 
that  it  may  be  will  be  the  theme  of  my  constant 
prayers  while  I  shall  remain  on  the  earth  beneath, 
or  in  the  heavens  above.  To  these  I  add  sincere 
wishes  for  your  health  and  happiness. 


TO    GEORGE    FLEMING. 

Monticello,  December  29,  1815. 
Sir, — At  the  date  of  your  favor  of  October  30th, 
I  had  just  left  home  on  a  journey  to  a  distant  posses- 
sion of  mine,  from  which  I  am  but  recently  returned, 
and  I  wish  that  the  matter  of  my  answer  could  com- 
pensate for  its  delay.  But,  Sir,  it  happens  that  of 
all  the  machines  which  have  been  employed  to  aid 
human  labor,  I  have  made  myself  the  least  acquainted 
with  (that  which  is  certainly  the  most  powerful  of  all) 
the  steam  engine.  In  its  original  and  simple  form 
indeed,  as  first  constructed  by  Newcomen  and  Sa- 
vary ,  it  had  been  a  subject  of  my  early  studies ;  but 
once  possessed  of  the  principle,  I  ceased  to  follow  up 
the  numerous  modifications  of  the  machinery  for 
employing  it,  of  which  I  do  not  know  whether  Eng- 
land or  our  own  country  has  produced  the  greatest 
number.  Hence,  I  am  entirely  incompetent  to  form 
a  judgment  of  the  comparative  merit  of  yours  with 
those  preceding  it;  and  the  cession  of  my  library  to 


366  Jefferson's  Works 

Congress  has  left  me  without  any  examples  to  turn 
to.  I  see,  indeed,  in  yours,  the  valuable  properties 
of  simplicity,  cheapness  and  accommodation  to  the 
small  and  more  numerous  calls  of  life,  and  the  calcu- 
lations of  its  power  appear  sound  and  correct.  Yet 
experience  and  frequent  disappointment  have  taught 
me  not  to  be  over-confident  in  theories  or  calcula- 
tions, until  actual  trial  of  the  whole  combination  has 
stamped  it  with  approbation.  Should  this  sanction 
be  added,  the  importance  of  your  construction  will 
be  enhanced  by  the  consideration  that  a  smaller 
agent,  applicable  to  our  daily  concerns,  is  infinitely 
more  valuable  than  the  greatest  which  can  be  used 
only  for  great  objects.  For  these  interest  the  few 
alone,  the  former  the  many.  I  once  had  an  idea  that 
it  might  perhaps  be  possible  to  economize  the  steam 
of  a  common  pot,  kept  boiling  on  the  kitchen  fire  until 
its  accumulation  should  be  sufficient  to  give  a  stroke, 
and  although  the  strokes  might  not  be  rapid,  there 
would  be  enough  of  them  in  the  day  to  raise  from  an 
adjacent  well  the  water  necessary  for  daily  use;  to 
wash  the  linen,  knead  the  bread,  beat  the  hominy, 
churn  the  butter,  turn  the  spit,  and  do  all  other 
household  offices  which  require  only  a  regular 
mechanical  motion.  The  unproductive  hands  now 
necessarily  employed  in  these  might  then  increase 
the  produce  of  our  fields.  I  proposed  it  to  Mr.  Rum- 
Sey,  one  of  our  greatest  mechanics,  who  believed 
in  its  possibility,  and  promised  to  turn  his  mind  to 
it,,     But  his  death  soon  after  disappointed  this  hope. 


Correspondence  367 

Of  how  much  more  value  would  this  be  to  ordinary 
life  than  Watts  and  Bolton's  thirty  pair  of  mill-stones 
to  be  turned  by  one  engine,  of  which  I  saw  seven  pair 
in  actual  operation.  It  is  an  interesting  part  of  your 
question,  how  much  fuel  would  be  requisite  for  your 
machine? 

Your  letter  being  evidence  of  your  attention  to 
mechanical  things,  and  to  their  application  to  matters 
of  daily  interest,  I  will  mention  a  trifle  in  this  way, 
which  yet  is  not  without  value.  I  presume,  like  the 
rest  of  us  in  the  country,  you  are  in  the  habit  of 
household  manufacture,  and  that  you  will  not,  like 
too  many,  abandon  it  on  the  return  of  peace,  to  en- 
rich our  late  enemy,  and  to  nourish  foreign  agents 
in  our  bosom,  whose  baneful  influence  and  intrigues 
cost  us  so  much  embarrassment  and  dissension.  The 
shirting  for  our  laborers  has  been  an  object  of  some 
difficulty.  Flax  is  injurious  to  our  lands,  and  of  so 
scanty  produce  that  I  have  never  attempted  it. 
Hemp,  on  the  other  hand,  is  abundantly  productive, 
and  will  grow  forever  on  the  same  spot.  But  the 
breaking  and  beating  it,  which  has  been  always  done 
by  hand,  is  so  slow,  so  laborious,  and  so  much  com- 
plained of  by  our  laborers,  that  I  had  given  it  up  and 
purchased  and  manufactured  cotton  for  their  shirt- 
ing. The  advanced  price  of  this,  however,  now 
makes  it  a  serious  item  of  expense ;  and  in  the  mean- 
time, a  method  of  removing  the  difficulty  of  preparing 
hemp  occurred  to  me,  so  simple  and  so  cheap,  that  I 
return  to  its  culture  and  manufacture      To  a  person 


36S  Jefferson's  Works 

having  a  threshing  machine,  the  addition  of  a  hemp- 
break  will  not  cost  more  than  twelve  or  fifteen  dollars. 
You  know  that  the  first  mover  in  that  machine  is  a 
horizontal  horse-wheel  with  cogs  on  its  upper  face. 
On  these  is  placed  a  wallower  and  shaft,  which  give 
motion  to  the  threshing  apparatus.  On  the  opposite 
side  of  this  same  wheel  I  place  another  wallower  and 
shaft,  through  which,  and  near  its  outer  end,  I  pass 
a  cross-arm  of  sufficient  strength,  projecting  on  each 


side  fifteen  inches  in  this  form:  c 


Nearly  under  the  cross-arm  is  placed  a  very  strong 
hemp-break,  much  stronger  and  heavier  than  those 
for  the  hand.  Its  head  block  particularly  is  mas- 
sive, and  four  feet  high,  and  near  its  upper  end,  in 
front,  is  fixed  a  strong  pin  (which  we  may  call  its 
horn) ;  by  this  the  cross-arm  lifts  and  lets  fall  the 
break  twice  in  every  revolution  of  the  wallower.  A 
man  feeds  the  break  with  hemp  stalks,  and  a  little 
person  holds  under  the  head  block  a  large  twist  of 
the  hemp  which  has  been  broken,  resembling  a  twist 
of  tobacco,  but  larger,  where  it  is  more  perfectly 
beaten  than  I  have  ever  seen  done  by  hand.  If  the 
horse-wheel  has  one  hundred  and  forty -four  cogs, 
the  wallow6r  eleven  rounds,  and  the  horse  goes 
three  times  round  in  a  minute,  it  will  give  about 
eighty  strokes  in  a  minute.  I  had  fixed  a  break  to 
be  moved  by  the  gate  of  my  saw-mill,  which  broke 
and  beat  at  the  rate  of  two  hundred  pounds  a  day. 
But  the  inconveniences  of  interrupting  that,  induced 


Correspondence  369 

me  to  try  the  power  of  a  horse,  and  I  have  found  it 
to  answer  perfectly.  The  power  being  less,  so  also 
probably  will  be  the  effect,  of  which  I  cannot  make 
a  fair  trial  until  I  commence  on  my  new  crop.  I 
expect  that  a  single  horse  will  do  the  breaking  and 
beating  of  ten  men.  Something  of  this  kind  has  been 
so  long  wanted  by  the  cultivators  of  hemp,  that  as 
soon  as  I  can  speak  of  its  effect  with  certainty,  I  shall 
probably  describe  it  anonymously  in  the  public 
papers,  in  order  to  forestall  the  prevention  of  its 
use  by  some  interloping  patentee.  I  shall  be  happy 
to  learn  that  an  actual  experiment  of  your  steam 
engine  fulfils  the  expectations  we  form  of  it,  and  I 
pray  you  to  accept  the  assurances  of  my  esteem  and 
respect. 


TO    MONSIEUR   DUPONT    DE    NEMOURS. 

Monticello,  December  31,   1815. 

Nothing,  my  very  dear  and  ancient  friend,  could 
have  equaled  the  mortification  I  felt  on  my  arrival 
at  home,  and  receipt  of  the  information  that  I  had 
lost  the  happiness  of  your  visit.  The  season  had  so 
far  advanced,  and  the  weather  become  so  severe, 
that  together  with  the  information  given  me  by  Mr. 
Correa,  so  early  as  September,  that  your  friends  even 
then  were  dissuading  the  journey,  I  had  set  it  down 
as  certain  it  would  be  postponed  to  a  milder  season 
of  the  ensuing  year.  I  had  yielded,  therefore,  with 
the  less  reluctance  to  a  detention  in  Bedford  by  a 

VOL.    XIV 24 


37°  Jeff ersoffs  Works 

slower  progress  of  my  workmen  than  had  been 
counted  on.  I  have  never  more  desired  anything 
than  a  full  and  free  conversation  with  you.  I  have 
not  understood  the  transactions  in  France  during 
the  years  '14  and  '15.  From  the  newspapers  we 
cannot  even  conjecture  the  secret  and  real  history; 
and  I  had  looked  for  it  to  your  visit.  A  pamphlet 
{he  Conciliateur)  received  from  M.  Jullien,  had  given 
me  some  idea  of  the  obliquities  and  imbecilities  of 
the  Bourbons,  during  their  first  restoration.  Some 
manoeuvres  of  both  parties  I  had  learnt  from  Lafay- 
ette, and  more  recently  from  Gallatin.  But  the  note 
you  referred  me  to  at  page  360  of  your  letter  to  Say, 
has  possessed  me  more  intimately  of  the  views,  the 
conduct  and  consequences  of  the  last  apparition  of 
Napoleon.  Still  much  is  wanting.  -I  wish  to  know 
what  were  the  intrigues  which  brought  him  back,  and 
what  those  which  finally  crushed  him?  What  parts 
were  acted  by  A,  B,  C,  D,  etc.,  some  of  whom  I  know, 
and  some  I  do  not  ?  How  did  the  body  of  the  nation 
stand  affectioned,  comparatively,  between  the  fool 
and  the  tyrant?  etc.,  etc.,  etc.  From  the  account 
my  family  gives  me  of  your  sound  health,  and  of  the 
vivacity  and  vigor  of  your  mind,  I  will  still  hope  we 
shall  meet  again,  and  that  the  fine  temperature  of 
our  early  summer,  to  wit,  of  May  and  June,  may  sug- 
gest to  you  the  salutary  effects  of  exercise,  and 
change  of  air  and  scene.  En  attendant,  we  will  turn 
to  other  subjects. 

That  your  opinion  of  the  hostile  intentions  of  Great 


Correspondence  3  7 1 

Britain  towards  us  is  sound,  I  am  satisfied,  from  her 
movements  north  and  south  of  us,  as  well  as  from  her 
temper.  She  feels  the  gloriole  of  her  late  golden 
achievements  tarnished  by  our  successes  against  her 
by  sea  and  land ;  and  will  not  be  contented  until  - 
she  has  wiped  it  off  by  triumphs  over  us  also.  I  rely, 
however,  on  the  volcanic  state  of  Europe  to  present 
other  objects  for  her  arms  and  her  apprehensions; 
and  am  not  without  hope  we  shall  be  permitted  to 
proceed  peaceably  in  making  children,  and  maturing 
and  moulding  our  strength  and  resources.  It  is 
impossible  that  France  should  rest  under  her  present 
oppressions  and  humiliations.  She  will  rise  in  that 
gigantic  strength  which  cannot  be  annihilated,  and 
will  fatten  her  fields  with  the  blood  of  her  enemies. 
I  only  wish  she  may  exercise  patience  and  forbear- 
ance until  divisions  among  them  may  give  her  a 
choice  of  sides.  To  the  overwhelming  power  of  Eng- 
land I  see  but  two  chances  of  limit.  The  first  is  her 
bankruptcy,  which  will  deprive  her  of  the  golden  in- 
strument of  all  her  successes.  The  other  in  that 
ascendency  which  nature  destines  for  us  by  immu- 
table laws.  But  to  hasten  this  last  consummation, 
we  too  must  exercise  patience  and  forbearance.  For 
twenty  years  to  come  we  should  consider  peace  as  the 
summum  bonum  of  our  country.  At  the  end  of  that 
period  we  shall  be  twenty  millions  in  number,  and 
forty  in  energy,  when  encountering  the  starved  and 
rickety  paupers  and  dwarfs  of  English  workshops. 
By  that  time  I  hope  your  grandson  will  have  become 


37 2  Jefferson'-s  Works 

one  of  our  High-admirals,  and  bear  distinguished 
part  in  retorting  the  wrongs  of  both  his  countries  on 
the  most  implacable  and  cruel  of  their  enemies.  In 
this  hope,  and  because  I  love  you,  and  all  who  are 
dear  to  you,  I  wrote  to  the  President  in  the  instant 
of  reading  your  letter  of  the  7th,  on  the  subject  of 
his  adoption  into  our  navy.  I  did  it  because  I  was 
gratified  in  doing  it,  while  I  knew  it  was  unnecessary. 
The  sincere  respect  and  high  estimation  in  which  the 
President  holds  you,  is  such  that  there  is  no  gratifica- 
tion, within  the  regular  exercise  of  his  functions, 
which  he  would  withhold  from  you.  Be  assured 
then  that,  if  within  that  compass,  this  business  is 
safe. 

Were  you  any  other  than  who  you  are,  I  should 
shrink  from  the  task  you  have  proposed  to  me,  of 
undertaking  to  judge  of  the  merit  of  your  own  trans- 
lation of  the  excellent  letter  on  education.  After 
having  done  all  which  good  sense  and  eloquence 
could  do-  on  the  original,  you  must  not  ambition  the 
double  need  of  English  eloquence  also.  Did  you 
ever  know  an  instance  of  one  who  could  write  in  a 
foreign  language  with  the  elegance  of  a  native  ? 
Cicero  wrote  Commentaries  of  his  own  Consulship 
in  Greek;  they  perished  unknown,  while  his  native 
compositions  have  immortalized  him  with  them- 
selves. No,  my  dear  friend;  you  must  not  risk  the 
success  of  your  letter  on  foreignisms  of  style  which 
may  weaken  its  effect.  Some  native  pen  must  give 
it  to  our  countrymen  in  a  native  dress,  faithful  to  its 


Correspondence  373 

original.  You  will  find  such  with  the  aid  of  our 
friend  Correa,  who  knows  everybody,  and  will  readily 
think  of  some  one  who  has  time  and  talent  for  this 
work.  I  have  neither.  Till  noon  I  am  daily  en- 
gaged in  a  correspondence  much  too  extensive  and 
laborious  for  my  age.  From  noon  to  dinner,  health, 
habit,  and  business  require  me  to  be  on  horseback; 
and  render  the  society  of  my  family  and  friends  a 
necessary  relaxation  for  the  rest  of  the  day.  These 
occupations  scarcely  leave  time  for  the  papers  of  the 
day ;  and  to  renounce  entirely  the  sciences  and  belles- 
lettres  is  impossible.  Had  not  Mr.  Gilmer  just  taken 
his  place  in  the  ranks  of  the  bar,  I  think  we  could 
have  engaged  him  in  this  work.  But  I  am  per- 
suaded that  Mr.  Correa 's  intimacy  with  the  persons 
of  promise  in  our  country,  will  leave  you  without 
difficulty  in  laying  this  work  of  instruction  open  to 
our  citizens  at  large. 

I  have  not  yet  had  time  to  read  your  Equinoctial 
Republics,  nor  the  letter  of  Say;  because  I  am  still 
engrossed  by  the  letters  which  had  accumulated 
during  my  absence.  The  latter  I  accept  with  thank- 
fulness, and  will  speedily  read  and  return  the  former. 
God  bless  you,  and  maintain  you  in  strength  of  body 
and  mind,  until  your  own  wishes  shall  be  to  resign 
both. 


374  Jefferson's  Works 

TO    CAPTAIN    A.    PARTRIDGE. 

Monticello,  January  2d,  1816. 

Sir, — I  am  but  recently  returned  from  my  journey 
to  the  neighborhood  of  the  Peaks  of  Otter,  and  find 
here  your  favors  of  November  23d  and  December  9th. 
I  have  therefore  to  thank  you  for  your  meteorological 
table  and  the  corrections  of  Colonel  Williams'  alti- 
tudes of  the  mountains  of  Virginia,  which  I  had  not 
before  seen ;  but  especially  for  the  very  able  extract 
on  barometrical  measures.  The  precision  of  the 
calculations,  and  soundness  of  the  principles  on 
which  they  are  founded,  furnish,  I  am  satisfied,  a 
great  approximation  towards  truth,  and  raise  that 
method  of  estimating  heights  to  a  considerable  degree 
of  rivalship  with  the  trigonometrical.  The  last  is 
not  without  some  sources  of  inaccuracy,  as  you  have 
truly  stated.  The  admeasurement  of  the  base  is 
liable  to  errors  which  can  be  rendered  insensible  only 
by  such  degrees  of  care  as  have  been  exhibited  by 
the  mathematicians  who  have  been  employed  in 
measuring  degrees  on  the  surface  of  the  earth.  The 
measure  of  the  angles  by  the  wonderful  perfection 
to  which  the  graduation  of  instruments  has  been 
brought  by  a  Bird,  a  Ramsden,  a  Troughton,  re- 
moves nearly  all  distrust  from  that  operation;  and 
we  may  add  that  the  effect  of  refraction,  rarely  worth 
notice  in  short  distances,  admits  of  correction  by 
well-established  laws;  these  sources  of  error  once 
reduced  to  be  insensible,  their  geometrical  employ- 


Correspondence  375 

ment  is  certainty  itself.  No  two  men  can  differ 
on  a  principle  of  trigonometry.  Not  so  as  to  the 
theories  of  barometrical  mensuration.  On  these 
have  been  great  differences  of  opinion,  and  among 
characters  of  just  celebrity. 

Dr.  Halley  reckoned  one-tenth  inch  of  mercury 
equal  to  90  feet  altitude  of  the  atmosphere.  Derham 
thought  it  equal  to  something  less  than  90  feet.  Cas- 
sini's  tables  to  24°  of  the  barometer  allowed  676 
toises  of  altitudes. 

Mariole's,  to  the  same 544  toises. 

Schruchzer's  559 

Nettleton's  tables  applied  to  a  difference  of  .5975  of 
mercury,  in  a  particular  instance  have  512.17  feet  of 
altitude,  and  Bonguor's  and  De  Luc's  rules,  to  the 
same  difference  gave  579.5  feet.  Sir  Isaac  Newton 
had  established  that  at  heights  in  arithmetical  pro- 
gression the  ratio  of  rarity  in  the  air  would  be  geo- 
metrical, and  this  being  the  character  of  the  natural 
numbers  and  their  logarithms,  Bonguor  adopted  the 
ratio  in  his  mensuration  of  the  mountains  of  South 
America,  and  stating  in  French  lignes  the  height  of 
the  mercury  of  different  stations,  took  their  loga- 
rithms to  five  places  only,  including  the  index,  and 
considered  the  resulting  difference  as  expressing  that 
of  the  altitudes  in  French  toises.  He  then  applied 
corrections  required  by  the  effect  of  the  temperature 
of  the  moment  on  the  air  and  mercury.  .  His  process, 
on  the  whole,  agrees  very  exactly  with  that  estab- 


376  Jefferson's  Works 

lished  in  your  excellent  extract.  In  1776  I  ob- 
served the  height  of  the  mercury  at  the  base  and 
summit  of  the  mountain  I  live  on,  and  by  Nettleton's 
tables,  estimated  the  height  at  512.17  feet,  and  called 
it  about  500  feet  in  the  Notes  on  Virginia.  But  cal- 
culating it  since  on  the  same  observations,  according 
to  Bonguor's  method  with  De  Luc's  improvements, 
the  result  was  579.5  feet;  and  lately  I  measured  the 
same  height  trigonometrically,  with  the  aid  of  a  base 
of  1,175  fee^  m  a  vertical  plane  with  the  summit,  and 
at  the  distance  of  about  1,500  yards  from  the  axis  of 
the  mountain,  and  made  it  599.35  feet.  I  consider 
this  as  testing  the  advance  of  the  barometrical  pro- 
cess towards  truth  by  the  adoption  of  the  logarith- 
mic ratio  of  heights  and  densities;  and  continued 
observations  and  experiments  will  continue  to  ad- 
vance it  still  more.  But  the  first  character  of  a 
common  measure  of  things  being  that  of  invariability, 
I  can  never  suppose  that  a  substance  so  heterogene- 
ous and  variable  as  the  atmospheric  fluid,  changing 
daily  and  hourly  its  weight  and  dimensions  to  the 
amount,  sometimes,  of  one-tenth  of  the  whole,  can 
be  applied  as  a  standard  of  measure  to  anything,  with 
as  much  mathematical  exactness,  as  a  trigonometri- 
cal process.  It  is  still,  however,  a  resource  of  great 
value  for  these  purposes,  because  its  use  is  so  easy,  in 
comparison  with  the  other,  and  especially  where  the 
grounds  are  unfavorable  for  a  base;  and  its  results 
are  so  near  the  truth  as  to  answer  all  the  common 
purposes  of  information.     Indeed,   I  should  in  all 


Correspondence  377 

cases  prefer  the  use  of  both,  to  warn  us  against  gross 
error,  and  to  put  us,  when  that  is  suspected,  on  a 
repetition  of  our  process.  When  lately  measuring 
trigonometrically  the  height  of  the  Peaks  of  Otter 
(as  my  letter  of  October  12th  informed  you  I  was 
about  to  do),  I  very  much  wished  for  a  barometer, 
to  try  the  height  of  that  also.  But  it  was  too  far  and 
hazardous  to  carry  my  own,  and  there  was  not  one 
in  that  neighborhood.  On  the  subject  of  that  ad- 
measurement, I  must  premise  that  my  object  was  only 
to  gratify  a  common  curiosity  as  to  the  height  of  those 
mountains,  which  we  deem  our  highest,  and  to  furnish 
an  a  pen  pres,  sufficient  to  satisfy  us  in  a  compari- 
son of  them  with  the  other  mountains  of  our  own,  or 
of  other  countries.  I  therefore  neither  provided  such 
instruments,  nor  aimed  at  such  extraordinary  accu- 
racy in  the  measures  of  my  base,  as  abler  operators 
would  have  employed  in  the  more  important  object 
of  measuring  a  degree,  or  of  ascertaining  the  relative 
position  of  different  places  for  astronomical  or  geo- 
graphical purposes.  My  instrument  was  a  theodo- 
lite by  Ramsden,  whose  horizontal  and  vertical  circles 
were  of  3-3-  inches  radius,  its  graduation  subdivided  by 
noniuses  to  one-third,  admitting  however  by  its  inter- 
vals, a  further  subdivision  by  the  eye  to  a  single 
minute,  with  two  telescopes,  the  one  fixed,  the  other 
movable,  and  a  Gunter's  chain  of  four  poles,  accu- 
rately adjusted  in  its  length,  and  carefully  attended 
on  its  application  to  the  base  line.  The  Sharp,  or 
southern  peak,   was  first  measured  by  a  base  of 


37^  Jefferson's  Works 

2806.32  feet  in  the  vertical  plane  of  the  axis  of  the 
mountain.  A  base  then  nearly  parallel  with  the  two 
mountains  of  6589  feet  was  measured,  and  observa- 
tions taken  at  each  end,  of  the  altitudes  and  horizon- 
tal angles  of  each  apex,  and  such  other  auxiliary 
observations  made  as  to  the  stations,  inclination  of 
the  base,  etc.,  as  a  good  degree  of  correctness  in  the 
result  would  require.  The  ground  of  our  bases  was 
favorable,  being  an  open  plain  of  close  grazed  mea- 
dow on  both  sides  of  the  Otter  river,  declining  so 
uniformly  with  the  descent  of  the  river  as  to  give 
no  other  trouble  than  an  observation  of  its  angle  of 
inclination,  in  order  to  reduce  the  base  to  the  plane 
of  the  horizon.  From  the  summit  of  the  Sharp  peak 
I  took  also  the  angle  of  altitude  of  the  flat  or  northern 
one  above  it,  my  other  observations  sufficing  to  give 
their  distance  from  one  another.  The  result  was,  the 
mean  height  of  the  Sharp  peak  above  the  surface  of 

Otter  river 2946.5  inches. . 

Mean  height  of  the  flat  peak  above  the  surface 

of  Otter  river 3103.5  inches. 

The  distance  between  the  two  summits, 

9507.73  inches. 

Their  rhumb  N.  330  50'  E.  the  distance  of  the  sta- 
tions of  observation  from  the  points  in  the  bases  of 
the  mountains  vertically  under  their  summits  was, 
the  shortest  19002.2  feet,  the  longest  24523.3  feet. 
These  mountains  are  computed  to  be  visible  to  fifteen 
counties  of  the  State,  without  the  advantage  of  coun- 


Correspondence  379 

ter-elevations,  and  to  several  more  with  that  advan- 
tage. I  must  add  that  I  have  gone  over  my  calcula- 
tions but  once,  and  nothing  is  more  possible  than  the 
mistake  of  a  figure  now  and  then,  in  calculating  so 
many  triangles,  which  may  occasion  some  variation 
in  the  result.  I  mean,  therefore,  when  I  have  leisure, 
to  go  again  over  the  whole.  The  ridge  of  mountains 
of  which  Monticello  is  one,  is  generally  low;  there  is 
one  in  it,  however,  called  Peter's  mountain,  consider- 
ably higher  than  the  general  ridge.  This  being  within 
a  dozen  miles  of  me,  northeastwardly,  I  think  in  the 
spring  of  the  year  to  measure  it  by  both  processes, 
which  may  serve  as  another  trial  of  the  logarithmic 
theory.  Should  I  do  this,  you  shall  know  the  result. 
In  the  meantime  accept  assurances  of  my  great  re- 
spect and  esteem. 


TO  COLONEL  CHARLES  YANCEY. 

Monticello,  January  6,   1816. 

Dear  Sir, — I  am  favored  with  yours  of  December 
24th,  and  perceive  you  have  many  matters  before 
you  of  great  moment.  I  have  no  fear  but  that  the 
legislature  will  do  on  all  of  them  what  is  wise  and  just. 
On  the  particular  subject  of  our  river,  in  the  naviga- 
tion of  which  our  county  has  so  great  an  interest,  I 
think  the  power  of  permitting  dams  to  be  erected 
across  it,  ought  to  be  taken  from  the  courts,  so  far 
as  the  stream  has  water  enough  for  navigation.  The 
value  of  our  property  is  sensibly  lessened  by  the  dam 


3&o  Jefferson  V  Works 

which  the  court  of  Fluvana  authorized  not  long  since 
to  be  erected,  but  a  little  above  its  mouth.  This 
power  over  the  value  and  convenience  of  our  lands 
is  of  much  too  high  a  character  to  be  placed  at  the 
will  of  a  county  court,  and  that  of  a  county,  too, 
wiiich  has  not  a  common  interest  in  the  preservation 
of  the  navigation  for  those  above  them.  As  to  the 
existing  dams,  if  any  conditions  are  proposed  more 
than  those  to  which  they  were  subjected  on  their 
original  erection,  I  think  they  would  be  allowed  the 
alternative  of  opening  a  sluice  for  the  passage  of  navi- 
gation, so  as  to  put  the  river  into  as  good  a  condition 
for  navigation  as  it  was  before  the  erection  of  their 
dam,  or  as  it  would  be  if  their  dam  were  away. 
Those  interested  in  the  navigation  might  then  use 
the  sluices  or  make  locks  as  should  be  thought  best. 
Nature  and  reason,  as  well  as  all  our  constitutions, 
condemn  retrospective  conditions  as  mere  acts  of 
power  against  right. 

I  recommend  to  your  patronage  our  Central  Col- 
lege. I  look  to  it  as  a  germ  from  which  a  great  tree 
may  spread  itself. 

There  is  before  the  assembly  a  petition  of  a  Captain 
Miller  which  I  have  at  heart,  because  I  have  great 
esteem  for  the  petitioner  as  an  honest  and  useful 
man.  He  is  about  to  settle  in  our  county,  and  to 
establish  a  brewery,  in  which  art  I  think  him  as 
skilful  a  man  as  has  ever  come  to  America.  I  wish 
to  see  this  beverage  become  common  instead  of  the 
whiskey  which  kills  one-third  of  our  citizens  and 


Correspondence  3  8 1 

ruins  their  families.  He  is  staying  with  me  until 
he  can  fix  himself,  and  I  should  be  thankful  for  in- 
formation from  time  to  time  of  the  progress  of  his 
petition. 

Like  a  dropsical  man  calling  out  for  water,  water, 
our  deluded  citizens  are  clamoring  for  more  banks, 
more  banks.  The  American  mind  is  now  in  that 
state  of  fever  which  the  world  has  so  often  seen  in 
the  history  of  other  nations.  We  are  under  the  bank 
bubble,  as  England  was  under  the  South  Sea  bubble, 
France  under  the  Mississippi  bubble,  and  as  every 
nation  is  liable  to  be,  under  whatever  bubble,  design, 
or  delusion  may  puff  up  in  moments  when  off  their 
guard.  We  are  now  taught  to  believe  that  legerde- 
main tricks  upon  paper  can  produce  as  solid  wealth 
as  hard  labor  in  the  earth.  It  is  vain  for  common 
sense  to  urge  that  nothing  can  produce  but  nothing; 
that  it  is  an  idle  dream  to  believe  in  a  philosopher's 
stone  which  is  to  turn  everything  into  gold,  and  to 
redeem  man  from  the  original  sentence  of  his  Maker, 
"in  the  sweat  of  his  brow  shall  he  eat  his  bread." 
Not  Quixote  enough,  however,  to  attempt  to  reason 
Bedlam  to  rights,  my  anxieties  are  turned  to  the 
most  practicable  means  of  withdrawing  us  from  the 
ruin  into  which  we  have  run.  Two  hundred  millions 
of  paper  in  the  hands  of  the  people,  (and  less  can- 
not be  from  the  employment  of  a  banking  capital 
known  to  exceed  one  hundred  millions,)  is  a  fearful 
tax  to  fall  at  haphazard  on  their  heads.  The  debt 
which  purchased  our  independence  was  but  of  eighty 


382  ;(  Jefferson's  Works 

millions,  of  which  twenty  years  of  taxation  had  in 
1809  paid  but  the  one  half.     And  what  have  we  pur- 
chased with  this  tax  of  two  hundred  millions  which 
we  are  to  pay  by  wholesale  but  usury,  swindling,  and 
new  forms  of  demoralization.     Revolutionary  his- 
tory has  warned  us  of  the  probable  moment  when 
this  baseless  trash  is  to  receive  its  fiat.     Whenever 
so  much  of  the  precious  metals  shall  have  returned 
into  the  circulation  as  that  every  one  can  get  some 
in  exchange  for  his  produce,  paper,  as  in  the  Revolu- 
tionary war,  will  experience  at  once  an  universal 
rejection.     When  public  opinion  changes,  it  is  with 
the  rapidity  of  thought.     Confidence  is  already  on 
the  totter,  and  every  one  now  handles  this  paper 
as  if  playing  at  Robin's  alive.     That  in  the  present 
state  of  the  circulation  the  banks  should  resume  pay- 
ments in  specie,  would  require  their  vaults  to  be  like 
the  widow's  cruse.     The  thing  to  be  aimed  at  is,  that 
the  excesses  of  their  emissions  should  be  withdrawn 
as  gradually,  but  as  speedily,  too,  as  is  practicable, 
without  so  much  alarm  as  to  bring  on  the  crisis 
dreaded.     Some  banks  are  said  to  be  calling  in  their 
paper.     But  ought  we  to  let  this  depend  on  their  dis- 
cretion?    Is  it  not  the  duty  of  the  legislature  to  en- 
deavor to  avert  from  their  constituents  such  a  catas- 
trophe as  the  extinguishment  of  two  hundred  millions 
of  paper  in  their  hands?     The  difficulty  is  indeed 
great;    and  the  greater,  because  the  patient  revolts 
against  all  medicine.     I  am  far  from  presuming  to 
say  that  any  plan  can  be  relied  on  with  certainty, 


Correspondence  3&3 

because  the  bubble  may  burst  from  one  moment  to 
another;  but  if  it  fails,  we  shall  be  but  where  we 
should  have  been  without  any  effort  to  save  our- 
selves. Different  persons,  doubtless,  will  devise  dif- 
ferent schemes  of  relief.  One  would  be  to  suppress 
instantly  the  currency  of  all  paper  not  issued  under 
the  authority  of  our  own  State  or  of  the  General  Gov- 
ernment ;  to  interdict  after  a  few  months  the  circula- 
tion of  all  bills  of  five  dollars  and  under ;  after  a  few 
months  more,  all  of  ten  dollars  and  under;  after 
other  terms,  those  of  twenty,  fifty,  and  so  on  to  one 
hundred  dollars,  which  last,  if  any  must  be  left  in 
circulation,  should  be  the  lowest  denomination. 
These  might  be  a  convenience  in  mercantile  trans- 
actions and  transmissions,  and  would  be  excluded 
by  their  size  from  ordinary  circulation.  But  the  dis- 
ease may  be  too  pressing  to  await  such  a  remedy. 
With  the  legislature  I  cheerfully  leave  it  to  apply 
this  medicine,  or  no  medicine  at  all.  I  am  sure  their 
intentions  are  faithful;  and  embarked  in  the  same 
bottom,  I  am  willing  to  swim  or  sink  with  my  fellow 
citizens.  If  the  latter  is  their  choice,  I  will  go  down 
with  them  without  a  murmur.  But  my  exhortation 
would  rather  be  "not  to  give  up  the  ship." 

I  am  a  great  friend  to  the  improvements  of  roads, 
canals,  and  schools.  But  I  wish  I  could  see  some 
provision  for  the  former  as  solid  as  that  of  the  latter, 
■ — something  better  than  fog.  The  literary  fund  is 
a  solid  provision,  unless  lost  in  the  impending  bank- 
ruptcy.    If  the  legislature  would  add  to  that  a  per- 


384  Jefferson's  Works 

petual  tax  of  a  cent  a  head  on  the  population  of  the 
State,  it  would  set  agoing  at  once,  and  forever  main- 
tain, a  system  of  primary  or  ward  schools,  and  an 
university  where  might  be  taught,  in  its  highest 
degree,  every  branch  of  science  useful  in  our  time  and 
country ;  and  it  would  rescue  us  from  the  tax  of  tory- 
ism,  fanaticism,  and  indifferent  ism  to  their  own  State, 
which  we  now  send  our  youth  to  bring  from  those  of 
New  England.  If  a  nation  expects  to  be  ignorant 
and  free,  in  a  state  of  civilization,  it  expects  what 
never  was  and  never  will  be.  The  functionaries  of 
every  government  have  propensities  to  command  at 
will  the  liberty  and  property  of  their  constituents. 
There  is  no  safe  deposit  for  these  but  with  the  people 
themselves ;  nor  can  they  be  safe  with  them  without 
information.  Where  the  press  is  free,  and  every 
man  able  to  read,  all  is  safe.  The  frankness  of  this 
communication  will,  I  am  sure,  suggest  to  you  a  dis- 
creet use  of  it.  I  wish  to  avoid  all  collisions  of  opin- 
ion with  all  mankind.  Show  it  to  Mr.  Maury,  with 
expressions  of  my  great  esteem.  It  pretends  to  con- 
vey no  more  than  the  opinions  of  one  of  your  thou- 
sand constituents,  and  to  claim  no  more  attention 
than  every  other  of  that  thousand. 

I  will  ask  you  once  more  to  take  care  of  Miller  and 
our  College,  and  to  accept  assurances  of  my  esteem 
and  respect. 


Correspondence  385 


TO    CHARLES    THOMPSON. 

Monticello,  January  9,  1816. 
My  Dear  and  Ancient  Friend, — An  acquaint- 
ance of  fifty- two  years,  for  I  think  ours  dates  from 
1764,  calls  for  an  interchange  of  notice  now  and  then, 
that  we  remain  in  existence,  the  monuments  of 
another  age,  and  examples  of  a  friendship  unaffected 
by  the  jarring  elements  by  which  we  have  been  sur- 
rounded, of  revolutions  of  government,  of  party  and 
of  opinion.  I  am  reminded  of  this  duty  by  the 
receipt,  through  our  friend  Dr.  Patterson,  of  your 
synopsis  of  the  four  Evangelists.  I  had  procured 
it. as  soon  as  I  saw  it  advertised,  and  had  become 
familiar  with  its  use ;  but  this  copy  is  the  more  valued 
as  it  comes  from  your  hand.  This  work  bears  the 
stamp  of  that  accuracy  which  marks  everything  from 
you,  and  will  be  useful  to  those  who,  not  taking 
things  on  trust,  recur  for  themselves  to  the  fountain  of 
pure  morals.  I,  too,  have  made  a  wee-little  book 
from  the  same  materials,  which  I  call  the  Philosophy 
of  Jesus ;  it  is  a  paradigma  of  His  doctrines,  made  by 
cutting  the  texts  out  of  the  book,  and  arranging  them 
on  the  pages  of  a  blank  book,  in  a  certain  order  of 
time  or  subject.  A  more  beautiful  or  precious  morsel 
of  ethics  I  have  never  seen ;  it  is  a  document  in  proof 
that  /  am  a  real  Christian,  that  is  to  say,  a  disciple 
of  the  doctrines  of  Jesus,  very  different  from  the 
Platonists,  who  call  me  infidel  and  themselves  Chris- 
tians and  preachers  of  the  gospel,  while  they  draw 
VOL.  xiv-25 


3^6  Jefferson's  Works 

all  their  characteristic  dogmas  from  what  its  Author 
never  said  nor  saw.  They  have  compounded  from 
the  heathen  mysteries  a  system  beyond  the  compre- 
hension of  man,  of  which  the  great  Reformer  of  the 
vicious  ethics  and  deism  of  the  Jews,  were  He  to  re- 
turn on  earth,  would  not  recognize  one  feature.  If 
I  had  time,  I  would  add  to  my  little  book  the  Greek, 
Lat  n  and  French  texts,  in  columns  side  by  side. 
And  I  wish  I  could  subjoin  a  translation  of  Gosindi's 
Syntagma  of  the  doctrines  of  Epicurus,  which,  not- 
withstanding the  calumnies  of  the  Stoics  and  carica- 
tures of  Cicero,  is  the  most  rational  system  remaining 
of  the  philosophy  of  the  ancients,  as  frugal  of  vicious 
indulgence,  and  fruitful  of  virtue  as  the  hyperbolical 
extravagances  of  his  rival  sects. 

I  retain  good  health,  am  rather  feeble  to  walk 
much,  but  ride  with  ease,  passing  two  or  three  hours 
a  day  on  horseback,  and  every  three  or  four  months 
taking  in  a  carriage  a  journey  of  ninety  miles  to  a 
distant  possession,  where  I  pass  a  good  deal  of  my 
time.  My  eyes  need  the  aid  of  glasses  by  night,  and 
with  small  print  in  the  day  also;  my  hearing  is  not 
quite  so  sensible  as  it  used  to  be;  no  tooth  shaking 
yet,  but  shivering  and  shrinking  in  body  from  the 
cold  we  now  experience,  my  thermometer  having 
been  as  low  as  120  this  morning.  My  greatest 
oppression  is  a  correspondence  afflictingly  laborious, 
the  extent  of  which  I  have  been  long  endeavoring  to 
curtail.  This  keeps  me  at  the  drudgery  of  the  writ- 
ing-table all  the  prime  hours  of  the  day,  leaving  for 


Correspondence  387 

the  gratification  of  my  appetite  for  reading,  only 
what  I  can  steal  from  the  hours  of  sleep.  Could  I 
reduce  this  epistolary  corvee  within  the  limits  of  my 
friends  and  affairs,  and  give  the  time  redeemed  from 
it  to  reading  and  reflection,  to  history,  ethics,  mathe- 
matics, my  life  would  be  as  happy  as  the  infirmities 
of  age  would  admit,  and  I  should  look  on  its  consum- 
mation with  the  composure  of  one  "qui  summum  nee 
me  tuit  diem  nee  optat." 

So  much  as  to  myself,  and  I  have  given  you  this 
string  of  egotisms  in  the  hope  of  drawing  a  similar 
one  from  yourself.  I  have  heard  from  others  that 
you  retain  your  health,  a  good  degree  of  activity,  and 
all  the  vivacity  and  cheerfulness  of  your  mind,  but  I 
wish  to  learn  it  more  minutely  from  yourself.  How 
has  time  affected  your  health  and  spirits  ?  What  are 
your  amusements,  literary  and  social?  Tell  me 
everything  about  yourself,  because  all  will  be  inter- 
esting to  me,  who  retains  for  you  ever  the  same  con- 
stant and  affectionate  friendship  and  respect. 


TO    BENJAMIN    AUSTIN,    ESQ. 

Monticello,  January  9,  181 6. 
Dear  Sir,— Your  favor  of  December  2 1st  has  been 
received,  and  I  am  first  to  thank  you  for  the  pam- 
phlet it  covered.  The  same  description  of  persons 
which  is  the  subject  of  that  is  so  much  multiplied 
here  too,  as  to  be  almost  a  grievance,  and  by  their 
numbers  in  the  public  councils,  have  wrested  from 


388  Jefferson's  Works 

the  public  hand  the  direction  of  the  pruning  knife. 
But  with  us  as  a  body,  they  are  republican,  and 
mostly  moderate  in  their  views;  so  far,  therefore, 
less  objects  of  jealousy  than  with  you.  Your  opin- 
ions on  the  events  which  have  taken  place  in  France, 
are  entirely  just,  so  far  as  these  events  are  yet  devel- 
oped. But  they  have  not  reached  their  ultimate 
termination.  There  is  still  an  awful  void  between 
the  present  and  what  is  to  be  the  last  chapter  of  that 
history;  and  I  fear  it  is  to  be  filled  with  abomina- 
tions as  frightful  as  those  which  have  already  dis- 
graced it.  That  nation  is  too  high-minded,  has  too 
much  innate  force,  intelligence  and  elasticity,  to 
remain  under  its  present  compression.  Samson  will 
arise  in  his  strength,  as  of  old,  and  as  of  old  will  burst 
asunder  the  withes  and  the  cords,  and  the  webs  of  the 
Philistines.  But  what  are  to  be  the  scenes  of  havoc 
and  horror,  and  how  widely  they  may  spread  be- 
tween brethren  of  the  same  house,  our  ignorance  of 
the  interior  feuds  and  antipathies  of  the  country 
places  beyond  our  ken.  It  will  end,  nevertheless, 
in  a  representative  government,  in  a  government  in 
which  the  will  of  the  people  will  be  an  effective  ingre- 
dient. This  important  element  has  taken  root  in 
the  European  mind,  and  will  have  its  growth;  their 
despots,  sensible  of  this,  are  already  offering  this 
modification  of  their  governments,  as  if  of  their  own 
accord.  Instead  of  the  parricide  treason  of  Bona- 
parte, in  perverting  the  means  confided  to  him  as  a 
republican  magistrate,  to  the  subversion  of  that 


Correspondence  389 

republic  and  erection  of  a  military  despotism  for  him- 
self and  his  family,  had  he  used  it  honestly  for  the 
establishment  and  support  of  a  free  government  in 
his  own  country,  France  would  now  have  been  in 
freedom  and  rest;  and  her  example  operating  in  a 
contrary  direction,  every  nation  in  Europe  would 
have  had  a  government  over  which  the  will  of  the 
people  would  have  had  some  control.  His  atrocious 
egotism  has  checked  the  salutary  progress  of  prin- 
ciple, and  deluged  it  with  rivers  of  blood  which  are 
not  yet  run  out.  To  the  vast  sum  of  devastation  and 
of  human  misery,  of  which  he  has  been  the  guilty 
cause,  much  is  still  to  be  added.  But  the  object  is 
fixed  in  the  eye  of  nations,  and  they  will  press  on  to 
its  accomplishment  and  to  the  general  amelioration 
of  the  condition  of  man.  What  a  germ  have  we, 
planted,  and  how  faithfully  should  we  cherish  the 
parent  tree  at  home! 

You  tell  me  I  am  quoted  by  those  who  wish  to  con- 
tinue our  dependence  on  England  for  manufactures. 
There  was  a  time  when  I  might  have  been  so  quoted 
with  more  candor,  but  within  the  thirty  years  which 
have  since  elapsed,  how  are  circumstances  changed! 
We  were  then  in  peace.  Our  independent  place 
among  nations  was  acknowledged.  A  commerce 
which  offered  the  raw  material  in  exchange  for  the 
same  material  after  receiving  the  last  touch  of  indus- 
*  try,  was  worthy  of  welcome  to  all  nations.  It  was 
I  expected  that  those  especially  to  whom  manufac- 
turing industry  was  important,  would  cherish  the 


39°  Jefferson's  Works 

friendship  of  such  customers  by  every  favor,  by 
every  inducement,  and  particularly  cultivate  their 
peace  by  every  act  of  justice  and  friendship.  Under 
this  prospect  the  question  seemed  legitimate, whether, 
with  such  an  immensity  of  unimproved  land,  court- 
ing the  hand  of  husbandry,  the  industry  of  agricul- 
ture, or  that  of  manufactures,  would  add  most  to  the 
national  wealth?  And  the  doubt  was  entertained 
on  this  consideration  chiefly,  that  to  the  labor  of  the 
husbandman  a  vast  addition  is  made  by  the  spon- 
taneous energies  of  the  earth  on  which  it  is  employed : 
for  one  grain  of  wheat  committed  to  the  earth,  she 
renders  twenty,  thirty,  and  even  fifty  fold,  whereas 
to  the  labor  of  the  manufacturer  nothing  is  added. 
Pounds  of  flax,  in  his  hands,  yield,  on  the  contrary, 
.  but  pennyweights  of  lace.  This  exchange,  too, 
laborious  as  it  might  seem,  what  a  field  did  it  promise 
for  the  occupations  of  the  ocean ;  what  a  nursery  for 
that  class  of  citizens  who  were  to  exercise  and  main- 
tain our  equal  rights  on  that  element  ?  This  was  the 
state  of  things  in  1785,  when  the  "  Notes  on  Virginia ' ' 
were  first  printed;  when,  the  ocean  being  open  to 
all  nations,  and  their  common  right  in  it  acknowl- 
edged and  exercised  under  regulations  sanctioned  by 
the  assent  and  usage  of  all,  it  was  thought  that  the 
doubt  might  claim  some  consideration.  But  who 
in  1785  could  foresee  the  rapid  depravity  which  was 
to  render  the  close  of  that  century  the  disgrace  of 
the  history  of  man  ?  Who  could  have  imagined  that 
the  two  most  distinguished  in  the  rank  of  nations, 


Correspondence  39  * 

for  science  and  civilization,  would  have  suddenly 
descended  from  that  honorable  eminence,  and  setting 
at  defiance  all  those  moral  laws  established  by  the 
Author  of  nature  between  nation  and  nation,  as  be- 
tween man  and  man,  would  cover  earth  and  sea  with 
robberies  and  piracies,  merely  because  strong  enough 
to  do  it  with  temporal  impunity ;  and  that  under  this 
disbandment  of  nations  from  social  order,  we  should 
have  been  despoiled  of  a  thousand  ships,  and  have 
thousands  of  our  citizens  reduced  to  Algerine  slavery. 
Yet  all  this  has  taken  place.  One  of  these  nations 
interdicted  to  our  vessels  all  harbors  of  the  globe 
without  having  first  proceeded  to  some  one  of  hers, 
there  paid  a  tribute  proportioned  to  the  cargo,  and 
obtained  her  license  to  proceed  to  the  port  of  destina- 
tion. The  other  declared  them  to  be  lawful  prize  if 
they  had  touched  at  the  port,  or  been  visited  by  a 
ship  of  the  enemy  nation.  Thus  were  we  completely 
excluded  from  the  ocean.  Compare  this  state  of 
things  with  that  of  '85,  and  say  whether  an  opinion 
founded  in  the  circumstances  of  that  day  can  be 
fairly  applied  to  those  of  the  present.  We  have 
experienced  what  we  did  not  then  believe,  that  there 
exist  both  profligacy  and  power  enough  to  exclude 
us  from  the  field  of  interchange  with  other  nations: 
that  to  be  independent  for  the  comforts  of  life  we 
must  fabricate  them  ourselves.  We  must  now  place 
the  manufacturer  by  the  side  of  the  agriculturist. 
The  former  question  is  suppressed,  or  rather  assumes 
a  new  form.     Shall  we  make  our  own  comforts,  or 


39 2  Jefferson's  Works 

go  without  them,  at  the  will  of  a  foreign  nation? 
He,  therefore,  who  is  now  against  domestic  manufac- 
ture, must  be  for  reducing  us  either  to  dependence 
on  that  foreign  nation,  or  to  be  clothed  in  skins,  and 
to  live  like  wild  beasts  in  dens  and  caverns.  I  am 
not  one  of  these;  experience  has  taught  me  that 
manufactures  are  now  as  necessary  to  our  independ- 
ence as  to  our  comfort;  and  if  those  who  quote  me 
as  of  a  different  opinion,  will  keep  pace  with  me  in 
purchasing  nothing  foreign  where  an  equivalent  of 
domestic  fabric  can  be  obtained,  without  regard  to 
difference  of  price,  it  will  not  be  our  fault  if  we  do  not 
soon  have  a  supply  at  home  equal  to  our  demand,  and 
wrest  that  weapon  of  distress  from  the  hand  which 
has  wielded  it.  If  it  shall  be  proposed  to  go  beyond 
our  own  supply,  the  question  of  '85  will  then  recur, 
will  our  surplus  labor  be  then  most  beneficially  em- 
ployed in  the  culture  of  the  earth,  or  in  the  fabrica- 
tions of  art?  We  have  time  yet  for  consideration, 
before  that  question  will  press  upon  us;  and  the 
maxim  to  be  applied  will  depend  on  the  circum- 
stances which  shall  then  exist;  for  in  so  complicated 
a  science  as  political  economy,  no  one  axiom  can  be 
laid  down  as  wise  and  expedient  for  all  times  and 
circumstances,  and  for  their  contraries.  Inattention 
to  this  is  what  has  called  for  this  explanation,  which 
reflection  would  have  rendered  unnecessary  with  the 
candid,  while  nothing  will  do  it  with  those  who  use 
the  former  opinion  only  as  a  stalking  horse,  to  cover 


Correspondence  393 

their  disloyal  propensities  to  keep  us  in  eternal  vas- 
salage to  a  foreign  and  unfriendly  people. 

I  salute  you  with  assurances  of  great  respect  and 
esteem. 


TO    JOHN    ADAMS. 

Monticello,  January  n,  1816. 

Dear  Sir, — Of  the  last  five  months  I  have  passed 
four  at  my  other  domicile,  for  such  it  is  in  a  consider- 
able degree.  No  letters  are  forwarded  to  me  there, 
because  the  cross  post  to  that  place  is  circuitous  and 
uncertain;  during  my  absence,  therefore,  they  are 
accumulating  here,  and  awaiting  acknowledgments. 
This  has  been  the  fate  of  your  favor  of  November 
13th. 

I  agree  with  you  in  all  its  eulogies  on  the  eighteenth 
century.  It  certainly  witnessed  the  sciences  and 
arts,  manners  and  morals,  advanced  to  a  higher 
degree  than  the  world  had  ever  before  seen.  And 
might  we  not  go  back  to  the  aera  of  the  Borgias,  by 
which  time  the  barbarous  ages  had  reduced  national 
morality  to  its  lowest  point  of  depravity,  and  observe 
that  the  arts  and  sciences,  rising  from  that  point, 
advanced  gradually  through  all  the  sixteenth,  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries,  softening  and  cor- 
recting the  manners  and  morals  of  man  ?  I  think, 
too,  we  may  add  to  the  great  honor  of  science  and 
the  arts,  that  their  natural  effect  is,  by  illuminating 
public  opinion,  to  erect  it  into  a  censor,  before  which 


394  Jefferson's  Works 

the  most  exalted  tremble  for  their  future,  as  well  as 
present  fame.  With  some  exceptions  only,  through 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  morality 
occupied  an  honorable  chapter  in  the  political  code 
of  nations.  You  must  have  observed  while  in  Eu- 
rope, as  I  thought  I  did,  that  those  who  administered 
the  governments  of  the  greater  powers  at  least,  had 
a  respect  to  faith,  and  considered  the  dignity  of  their 
government  as  involved  in  its  integrity.  A  wound 
indeed  was  inflicted  on  this  character  of  honor  in  the 
eighteenth  century  by  the  partition  of  Poland.  But 
this  was  the  atrocity  of  a  barbarous  government 
chiefly,  in  conjunction  with  a  smaller  one  still 
scrambling  to  become  great,  while  one  only  of  those 
already  great,  and  having  character  to  lose,  de- 
scended to  the  baseness  of  an  accomplice  in  the  crime. 
France,  England,  Spain,  shared  in  it  only  inasmuch 
as  they  stood  aloof  and  permitted  its  perpetration. 

How  then  has  it  happened  that  these  nations, 
France  especially  and  England,  so  great,  so  dignified, 
so  distingu'shed  by  science  and  the  arts,  plunged  all 
at  once  into  all  the  depths  of  human  enormity,  threw 
off  suddenly  and  openly  all  the  restraints  of  morality, 
all  sensation  to  character,  and  unblushingly  avowed 
and  acted  on  the  principle  that  power  was  right? 
Can  this  sudden  apostas}7  from  national  rectitude 
be  accounted  for?  The  treaty  of  Pilnitz  seems  to 
have  begun  it,  suggested  perhaps  by  the  baneful  pre- 
cedent of  Poland.  Was  it  from  the  terror  of  mon- 
archs,  alarmed  at  the  light  returning  on  them  from 


Correspondence  395 

the  west,  and  kindling  a  volcano  under  their  thrones? 
Was  it  a  combination  to  extinguish  that  light,  and 
to  bring  back,  as  their  best  auxiliaries,  those  enu- 
merated by  you,  the  Sorbonne,  the  Inquisition,  the 
Index  Expurgatorius,  and  the  knights  of  Loyola? 
Whatever  it  was,  the  close  of  the  century  saw  the 
moral  world  thrown  back  again  to  the  age  of  the 
Borgias,  to  the  point  from  which  it  had  departed 
three  hundred  years  before.  France,  after  crushing 
and  punishing  the  conspiracy  of  Pilnitz,  went  herself 
deeper  and  deeper  into  the  crimes  she  had  been 
chastising.  I  say  France  and  not  Bonaparte;  for, 
although  he  was  the  head  and  mouth,  the  nation 
furnished  the  hands  which  executed  his  enormities. 
England,  although  in  opposition,  kept  full  pace  with 
France,  not  indeed  by  the  manly  force  of  her  own 
arms,  but  by  oppressing  the  weak  and  bribing  the 
strong.  At  length  the  whole  choir  joined  and  divided 
the  weaker  nations  among  them.  Your  prophecies 
to  Dr.  Price  proved  truer  than  mine;  and  yet  fell 
short  of  the  fact,  for  instead  of  a  million,  the  destruc- 
tion of  eight  or  ten  millions  of  human  beings  has 
probably  been  the  effect  of  these  convulsions.  I  did 
not,  in  '89,  believe  they  would  have  lasted  so  long, 
nor  have  cost  so  much  blood.  But  although  your 
prophecy  has  proved  true  so  far,  I  hope  it  does  not 
preclude  a  better  final  result.  That  same  light  from 
our  west  seems  to  have  spread  and  illuminated  the 
very  engines  employed  to  extinguish  it.  It  has  given 
them  a  glimmering  of  their  rights  and  their  power. 


396  Jefferson's  Works 

The  idea  of  representative  government  has  taken 
root  and  growth  among  them.  Their  masters  feel  it, 
and  are  saving  themselves  by  timely  offers  of  this 
modification  of  their  powers.  Belgium,  Prussia, 
Poland,  Lombardy,  etc.,  are  now  offered  a  repre- 
sentative organization ;  illusive  probably  at  first,  but 
it  will  grow  into  power  in  the  end.  Opinion  is  power, 
and  that  opinion  will  come.  Even  France  will  yet 
attain  representative  government.  You  observe  it 
makes  the  basis  of  every  Constitution  which  has  been 
demanded  or  offered, — of  that  demanded  by  their 
Senate;  of  that  offered  by  Bonaparte;  and  of  that 
granted  by  Louis  XVIII.  The  idea  then  is  rooted, 
and  will  be  established,  although  rivers  of  blood  may 
yet  flow  between  them  and  their  object.  The  allied 
armies  now  couching  upon  them  are  first  to  be  de- 
stroyed, and  destroyed  they  will  surely  be.  A  nation 
united  can  never  be  conquered.  We  have  seen  what 
the  ignorant,  bigoted  and  unarmed  Spaniards  could 
do  against  the  disciplined  veterans  of  their  invaders. 
What  then  may  we  not  expect  from  the  power  and 
character  of  the  French  nation?  The  oppressors 
may  cut  off  heads  after  heads,  but  like  those  of  the 
Hydra  they  multiply  at  every  stroke.  The  recruits 
within  a  nation's  own  limits  are  prompt  and  without 
number ;  while  those  of  their  invaders  from  a  distance 
are  slow,  limited,  and  must  come  to  an  end.  I  think, 
too,  we  perceive  that  all  these  allies  do  not  see  the 
same  interest  in  the  annihilation  of  the  power  of 
France,     There  are  certainly  some  symptoms  of  for§- 


Correspondence  397 

sight  in  Alexander  that  France  might  produce  a  salu- 
tary diversion  of  force  were  Austria  and  Prussia  to 
become  her  enemies.  France,  too,  is  the  neutral  ally 
of  the  Turk,  as  having  no  interfering  interests,  and 
might  be  useful  in  neutralizing  and  perhaps  turning 
that  power  on  Austria.  That  a  re- acting  jealousy, 
too,  ex  sts  with  Austria  and  Prussia,  I  think  their 
late  strict  alliance  indicates;  and  I  should  not  won- 
der if  Spain  should  discover  a  sympathy  with  them. 
Italy  is  so  divided  as  to  be  nothing.  Here  then  we 
see  new  coalitions  in  embryo,  which,  after  France 
shall  in  turn  have  suffered  a  just  punishment  for  her 
crimes,  will  not  only  raise  her  from  the  earth  on 
which  she  is  prostrate,  but  give  her  an  opportunity 
to  establish  a  government  of  as  much  liberty  as  she 
can  bear — enough  to  ensure  her  happiness  and  pros- 
perity. When  insurrection  begins,  be  it  where  it  will, 
all  the  partitioned  countries  will  rush  to  arms,  and 
Europe  again  become  an  arena  of  gladiators.  And 
what  is  "the  definite  object  they  will  propose?  A 
restoration  certainly  of  the  status  quo  prius,  of  the 
state  of  possession  of  '89.  I  see  no  other  principle 
on  which  Europe  can  ever  again  settle  down  in  lasting 
peace.  I  hope  your  prophecies  will  go  thus  far,  as 
my  wishes  do,  and  that  they,  like  the  former,  will 
prove  to  have  been  the  sober  dictates  of  a  superior 
understanding,  and  a  sound  calculation  of  effects 
from  causes  well  understood.  Some  future  Morgan 
will  then  have  an  opportunity  of  doing  you  justice, 
and  of  counterbalancing  the  breach  of  confidence  of 


398  Jefferson's  Works 

which  you  so  justly  complain,  and  in  which  no  one 
has  had  more  frequent  occasion  of  fellow-feeling  than 
myself.  Permit  me  to  place  here  my  affectionate 
respects  to  Mrs.  Adams,  and  to  add  for  yourself  the 
assurances  of  cordial  friendship  and  esteem. 


TO    DABNEY    CARR. 

Monticello,  January  19,  1816. 
Dear  Sir, — At  the»date  of  your  letter  of  December 
the  1st,  I  was  in  Bedford,  and  since  my  return,  so 
many  letters,  accumulated  during  my  absence,  have 
been  pressing  for  answers,  that  this  is  the  first  mo- 
ment I  have  been  able  to  attend  to  the  subject  of 
yours.  While  Mr.  Girardin  was  in  this  neighborhood 
writing  his  continuation  of  Burke's  history,  I  had 
suggested  to  him  a  proper  notice  of  the  establish- 
ment of  the  committee  of  correspondence  here  in 
1773,  and  of  Mr.  Carr,  your  father,  who  introduced 
it.  He  has  doubtless  done  this,  and  his  work  is  now 
in  the  press.  My  books,  journals  of  the  times,  etc., 
being  all  gone,  I  have  nothing  now  but  an  impaired 
memory  to  resort  to  for  the  more  particular  statement 
you  wish.  But  I  give  it  with  the  more  confidence, 
as  I  find  that  I  remember  old  things  better  than  new. 
The  transaction  took  place  in  the  session  of  Assembly 
of  March,  1773.  Patrick  Henry,  Richard  Henry  Lee, 
Frank  Lee,  your  father  and  myself,  met  by  agree- 
ment, one  evening,  about  the  close  of  the  session,  at 
the  Raleigh  Tavern,  to  consult  on  the  measures  which 


Correspondence  399 

the  circumstances  of  the  times  seemed  to  call  for. 
We  agreed,  in  result,  that  concert  in  the  operations 
of  the  several  colonies  was  indispensable;  and  that 
to  produce  this,  some  channel  of  correspondence 
between  them  must  be  opened;  that  therefore,  we 
would  propose  to  our  House  the  appointment  of  a 
committee  of  correspondence,  which  should  be  au- 
thorized and  instructed  to  write  to  the  Speakers  of 
the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  several  colonies, 
recommending  the  appointment  of  similar  commit- 
tees on  their  part,  who,  by  a  communication  of  senti- 
ment on  the  transactions  threatening  us  all,  might 
promote  a  harmony  of  action  salutary  to  all.  This 
was  the  substance,  not  pretending  to  remember  the 
words.  We  proposed  the  resolution,  and  your  father 
was  agreed  on  to  make  the  motion.  He  did  it  the 
next  day,  March  the  12th,  with  great  ability,  recon- 
ciling all  to  it,  not  only  by  the  reasonings,  but  by  the 
temper  and  moderation  with  which  it  was  developed. 
It  was  adopted  by  a  very  general  vote.  Peyton  Ran- 
dolph, some  of  us  who  proposed  it,  and  who  else  I  do 
not  remember,  were  appointed  of  the  committee. 
We  immediately  despatched  letters  by  expresses  to 
the  Speakers  of  all  the  other  Assemblies.  I  remem- 
ber that  Mr.  Carr  and  myself,  returning  home  to- 
gether, and  conversing  on  the  subject  by  the  way, 
concurred  in  the  conclusion  that  that  measure  must 
inevitably  beget  the  meeting  of  a  Congress  of  Depu- 
ties from  all  the  colonies,  for  the  purpose  of  uniting  all 
in  the  same  princ'ples  and  measures  for  the  mainte- 


40°  Jefferson's  Works 

nance  of  our  rights.  My  memory  cannot  deceive 
me,  when  I  affirm  that  we  did  it  in  consequence  of 
no  such  proposition  from  any  other  colony.  No 
doubt  the  resolution  itself  and  the  journals  of  the  day 
will  show  that  ours  was  original,  and  not  merely 
responsive  to  one  from  any  other  quarter.  Yet, 
I  am  certain  I  remember  also,  that  a  similar  propo- 
sition, and  nearly  cotemporary,  was  made  by  Massa- 
chusetts, and  that  our  northern  messenger  passed 
theirs  on  the  road.  This,  too,  may  be  settled  by 
recurrence  to  the  records  of  Massachusetts.  The 
proposition  was  generally  acceded  to  by  the  other 
colonies,  and  the  first  effect,  as  expected,  was  the 
meeting  of  a  Congress  at  New  York  the  ensuing  year. 
The  committee  of  correspondence  appointed  by  Mas- 
sachusetts, as  quoted  by  you  from  Marshall,  under 
the  date  of  1770,  must  have  been  for  a  special  pur- 
pose, and  functus  officio  before  the  date  of  1773,  or 
Massachusetts  herself  would  not  then  have  proposed 
another.  Records  should  be  examined  to  settle  this 
accurately.  I  well  remember  the  pleasure  expressed 
in  the  countenance  and  conversation  of  the  members 
generally,  on  this  debut  of  Mr.  Carr,  and  the  hopes 
they  conceived  as  well  from  the  talents  as  the  patriot- 
ism it  manifested.  But  he  died  within  two  months 
after,  and  in  him  we  lost  a  powerful  fellow-laborer. 
His  character  was  of  a  high  order.  A  spotless  in- 
tegrity, sound  judgment,  handsome  imagination, 
enriched  by  education  and  reading,  quick  and  clear 
in  his  conceptions,  of  correct  and  ready  elocution, 


Correspondence  401 

impressing  every  hearer  with  the  sincerity  of  the 
heart  from  which  it  flowed.  His  firmness  was  in- 
flexible in  whatever  he  thought  was  right ;  but  when 
no  moral  principle  stood  in  the  way,  never  had  man 
more  of  the  milk  of  human  kindness,  of  indulgence, 
of  softness,  of  pleasantry  of  conversation  and  con- 
duct. The  number  of  his  friends,  and  the  warmth 
of  their  affection,  were  proofs  of  his  worth,  and  of 
their  estimate  of  it.  To  give  to  those  now  living, 
an  idea  of  the  affliction  produced  by  his  death  in  the 
minds  of  all  who  knew  him,  I  liken  it  to  that  lately 
felt  by  themselves  on  the  death  of  his  eldest  son, 
Peter  Carr,  so  like  him  in  all  his  endowments  and 
moral  qualities,  and  whose  recollection  can  never 
recur  without  a  deep-drawn  sigh  from  the  bosom  of 
any  one  who  knew  him.  You  mention  that  I  showed 
you  an  inscription  I  had  proposed  for  the  tombstone 
of  your  father.  Did  I  leave  it  in  your  hands  to  be 
copied?  I  ask  the  question,  not  that  I  have  any  such 
recollection,  but  that  I  find  it  no  longer  in  the  place 
of  its  deposit,  and  think  I  never  took  it  out  but  on 
that  occasion.     Ever  and  affectionately  yours. 


TO    DR.    PETER    WILSON,    PROFESSOR    OF    LANGUAGES, 
COLUMBIA    COLLEGE,    NEW    YORK. 

Monticello,  January  20,   1816. 

Sir, — Of  the  last  five  months,  I  have  been  absent 
four  from  home,  which  must  apologize  for  so  very 
late  an  acknowledgment  of  your  favor  of  November 

VOL.    XIV-26 


402  Jefferson's  Works 

2 2d,  and  I  wish  the  delay  could  be  compensated  by 
the  matter  of  the  answer.  But  an  unfortunate  acci- 
dent puts  that  out  of  my  power.  During  the  course 
of  my  public  life,  and  from  a  very  early  period  of  it, 
I  omitted  no  opportunity  of  procuring  vocabularies 
of  the  Indian  languages,  and  for  that  purpose  formed 
a  model  expressing  such  objects  in  nature  as  must  be 
familiar  to  every  people,  savage  or  civilized.  This 
being  made  the  standard  to  which  all  were  brought, 
would  exhibit  readily  whatever  affinities  of  language 
there  be  between  the  several  tribes.  It  was  my  in- 
tention, on  retiring  from  public  business,  to  have 
digested  these  into  some  order,  so  as  to  show  not  only 
what  relations  of  language  existed  among  our  own 
aborigines,  but  by  a  collation  with  the  great  Russian 
vocabulary  of  the  languages  of  Europe  and  Asia, 
whether  there  were  any  between  them  and  the  other 
nations  of  the  continent.  On  my  removal  from 
Washington,  the  package  in  which  this  collection 
was  coming  by  water,  was  stolen  and  destroyed.  It 
consisted  of  between  thirty  and  forty  vocabularies, 
of  which  I  can,  from  memory,  say  nothing  particular; 
but  that  I  am  certain  more  than  half  of  them  differed 
as  radically,  each  from  every  other,  as  the  Greek,  the 
Latin,  and  Icelandic.  And  even  of  those  which  seemed 
to  be  derived  from  the  same  radix,  the  departure  was 
such  that  the  tribes  speaking  them  could  not  prob- 
ably understand  one  another.  Single  words,  or  two 
or  three  together,  might  perhaps  be  understood,  but 
not  a  whole  sentence  of  any  extent  or  construction. 


Correspondence  4^3 

I  think,  therefore,  the  pious  missionaries  who  shall 
go  to  the  several  tribes  to  instruct  them  in  the  Chris- 
tian religion  will  have  to  learn  a  language  for  every 
tribe  they  go  to;  nay,  more,  that  they  will  have  to 
create  a  new  language  for  every  one,  that  is  to  say, 
to  add  to  theirs  new  words  for  the  new  ideas  they  will 
have  to  communicate.  Law,  medicine,  chemistry, 
mathematics,  every  science  has  a  language  of  its  own, 
and  divinity  not  less  than  others.  Their  barren 
vocabularies  cannot  be  vehicles  for  ideas  of  the  fall 
of  man,  his  redemption,  the  triune  composition  of 
the  Godhead,  and  other  mystical  doctrines  consid- 
ered by  most  Christians  of  the  present  date  as  essen- 
tial elements  of  faith.  The  enterprise  is  therefore 
arduous,  but  the  more  inviting  perhaps  to  missionary 
zeal,  in  proportion  as  the  merit  of  surmounting  it  will 
be  greater.  Again  repeating  my  regrets  that  I  am 
able  to  give  so  little  satisfaction  on  the  subject  of 
your  inquiry,  I  pray  you  to  accept  the  assurance  of 
my  great  consideration  and  esteem. 


TO  AMOS  J.  COOK,  PRECEPTOR  OP  FRYEBURG  ACADEMY 
IN    THE    DISTRICT    OF    MAINE. 

Monticello,  January  21,  18 16. 
Sir, — Your  favor  of  December  18th  was  exactly  a 
month  on  its  way  to  this  place ;  and  I  have  to  thank 
you  for  the  elegant  and  philosophical  lines  communi- 
cated by  the  Nestor  of  our  Revolution.  Whether 
the  style  or  sentiment  be  considered,  they  were  well 


404  Jefferson's  Works 

worthy  the  trouble  of  being  copied  and  communi- 
cated by  his  pen.  Nor  am  I  less  thankful  for  the 
happy  translation  of  them.  It  adds  another  to  the 
rare  instances  of  a  rival  to  its  original:  superior  in- 
deed in  one  respect,  as  the  same  outline  of  sentiment 
is  brought  within  a  compass  of  better  proportion. 
For  if  the  original  be  liable  to  any  criticism,  it  is  that 
of  giving  too  great  extension  to  the  same  general 
idea.  Yet  it  has  a  great  authority  to  support  it, 
that  of  a  wiser  man  than  all  of  us.  "J  sought  in  my 
heart  to  give  myself  unto  wine;  I  made  me  great 
works;  I  builded  me  houses;  I  planted  me  vine- 
yards; I  made  me  gardens,  and  orchards,  and  pools 
to  water  them;  I  got  me  servants  and  maidens,  and 
great  possessions  of  cattle ;  I  gathered  me  also  silver 
and  gold,  and  men  singers  and  women  singers,  and 
the  delights  of  the  sons  of  men,  and  musical  instru- 
ments of  all  sorts ;  and  whatsoever  mine  eyes  desired 
I  kept  not  from  them ;  I  withheld  not  my  heart  from 
any  joy.  Then  I  looked  on  all  the  works  that  my 
hands  had  wrought,  and  behold!  all  was  vanity  and 
vexation  of  spirit!  I  saw  that  wisdom  excelleth 
folly,  as  far  as  light  excelleth  darkness/'  The 
Preacher,  whom  I  abridge,  has  indulged  in  a  much 
larger  amplification  of  his  subject.  I  am  not  so 
happy  as  my  friend  and  ancient  colleague,  Mr. 
Adams,  in  possessing  anything  original,  inedited,  and 
worthy  of  comparison  with  the  epigraph  of  the  Span- 
ish monk.  I  can  offer  but  humble  prose,  from  the 
hand  indeed  of  the  father  of  eloquence  and  philoso- 


Correspondence  405 

phy;  a  moral  morsel,  which  our  young  friends  under 
your  tuition  should  keep  ever  in  their  eye,  as  the  ulti- 
mate term  of  your  instructions,  and  of  their  labors. 
"  Hie,  quisquis  est,  qui  moderatione  et  constantia 
quietus  animo  est,  sibique  ipse  placatus;  ut  nee 
tabescat  molestiis,  nee  frangatur  timore,  nee  siti- 
enter  quid  expectens  ardeat  desiderio,  nee  alacritate 
futili  gestiens  deliquescat;  is  est  sapiens,  quern 
quaerimus;  is  est  beatus;  cui  nihil  humanarum 
rerum  aut  intolerable  ad  dimittendum  animum, 
aut  nimis  lactabile  ad  efferendum,  videri  potest.' ' 
Or  if  a  poetical  dress  will  be  more  acceptable  to  the 
fancy  of  the  juvenile  student: 

"Quisnam  igitur  liber?   Sapiens,  sibique  imperiosus: 
Quern  neque  pauperies,  neque  mors,  neque  vincula  terrent: 
Responsare  cupidinibus,  contemnere  honores 
Fortis,  et  in  seipso  totus  teres,  atque  rotundus; 
Externi  ne  quid  valeat  per  laeve  morari: 
In  quern  manca  ruit  semper  Fortuna." 

And  if  the  Wise  be  the  happy  man,  as  these  sages 
say,  he  must  be  virtuous  too;  for,  without  virtue, 
happiness  cannot  be.  This  then  is  the  true  scope 
of  all  academical  emulation. 

You  request  something  in  the  handwriting  of  Gen- 
eral Washington.  I  enclose  you  a  letter  which  I 
received  from  him  while  in  Paris,  covering  a  copy 
of  the  new  Constitution ;  it  is  offered  merely  as  what 
you  ask,  a  specimen  of  his  handwriting. 

On  the  subject  of  your  Museum,  I  fear  I  cannot 
flatter  myself  with  being  useful  %Q  it    Were  the 


406  Jefferson's  Works 

obstacle  of  distance  out  of  the  way,  age  and  retire- 
ment have  withdrawn  me  from  the  opportunities  of 
procuring  objects  in  that  line.  With  every  wish  for 
the  prosperity  of  your  institution,  accept  the  assur- 
ances of  my  great  esteem  and  respect. 


TO    MR.   THOMAS    RITCHIE. 

Monticello,  January  21,  1816. 
Dear  Sir, — In  answering  the  letter  of  a  Northern 
correspondent  lately,  I  indulged  in  a  tirade  against 
a  pamphlet  recently  published  in  this  quarter.  On 
revising  my  letter,  however,  I  thought  it  unsafe  to 
commit  myself  so  far  to  a  stranger.  I  struck  out 
the  passage  therefore,  yet  I  think  the  pamphlet  of 
such  a  character  as  not  to  be  unknown,  or  unnoticed 
by  the  people  of  the  United  States.  It  is  the  most 
bold  and  impudent  stride  New  England  has  ever 
made  in  arrogating  an  ascendency  over  the  rest 
of  the  Union.  The  first  form  of  the  pamphlet 
was  an  address  from  the  Reverend  Lyman  Beecher, 
chairman  of  the  Connecticut  Society  for  the  edu- 
cation of  pious  young  men  for  the  ministry.  Its 
matter  was  then  adopted  and  published  in  a  ser- 
mon by  Reverend  Mr.  Pearson  of  Andover  in  Massa- 
chusetts, where  they  have  &  theological  college;  and 
where  the  address  "with  circumstantial  variations 
to  adapt  it  to  more  general  use ' '  is  reprinted  on  a 
sheet  and  a  half  of  paper,  in  so  cheap  a  form  as  to 
be  distributed,  I  imagine,  gratis,  for  it  has  a  final 


Correspondence  407 

note  indicating  six  thousand  copies  of  the  first 
edition  printed.  So  far  as  it  respects  Virginia,  the 
extract  of  my  letter  gives  the  outline.  I  therefore 
send  it  to  you  to  publish  or  burn,  abridge  or  alter,  as 
you  think  best.  You  understand  the  public  palate 
better  than  I  do.  Only  give  it  such  a  title  as  may 
lead  to  no  suspicion  from  whom  you  receive  it.  I 
am  the  more  induced  to  offer  it  to  vou  because  it  is 
possible  mine  may  be  the  only  copy  in  the  State,  and 
because,  too,  it  may  be  a  propos  for  the  petition  for 
the  establishment  of  a  theological  society  now  be- 
fore the  legislature,  and  to  which  they  have  shown 
the  unusual  respect  of  hearing  an  advocate  for  it  at 
their  bar.  From  what  quarter  this  theological 
society  comes  forward  I  know  not ;  perhaps  from 
our  own  tramontaine  clergy,  of  New  England  re- 
ligion and  politics ;  perhaps  it  is  the  entering  wedge 
from  its  theological  sister  in  Andover,  for  the  body 
of  " qualified  religious  instructors"  proposed  by 
their  pious  brethren  of  the  East  "to  evangelize  and 
catechize,"  to  edify  our  daughters  by  weekly  lec- 
tures, and  our  wives  by  "family  visits"  from  these 
pious  young  monks  from  Harvard  and  Yale.  How- 
ever, do  with  this  what  you  please,  and  be  assured 
of  my  friendship  and  respect. 


4^8  Jefferson  V  Works 


TO    NATHANIEL    MACON. 

Monticello,  January  22,  1816. 
Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  the  7th,  after  being  a 
fortnight  on  the  road,  reached  this  the  last  night. 
On  the  subject  of  the  statue  of  General  Washington, 
which  the  legislature  of  North  Carolina  has  ordered 
to  be  procured,  and  set  up  in  their  Capitol,  I  shall 
willingly  give  you  my  best  information  and  opinions. 

1.  Your  first  inquiry  is  whether  one  worthy  the 
character  it  is  to  represent,  and  the  State  which 
erects  it,  can  be  made  in  the  United  States?  Cer- 
tainly it  cannot.  I  do  not  know  that  there  is  a  single 
marble  statuary  in  the  United  States,  but  I  am  sure 
there  cannot  be  one  who  would  offer  himself  as  quali- 
fied to  undertake  this  monument  of  gratitude  and 
taste.  Besides,  no  quarry  of  statuary  marble  has 
yet,  I  believe,  been  opened  in  the  United  States,  that 
is  to  say,  of  a  marble  pure  white,  and  in  blocks  of 
sufficient  size,  without  vein  or  flaw.  The  quarry  of 
Carrara,  in  Italy,  is  the  only  one  in  the  accessible  parts 
of  Europe  which  furnishes  such  blocks.  It  was  from 
thence  we  brought  to  Paris  that  for  the  statue  of 
General  Washington,  made  there  on  account  of  this 
State ;  and  it  is  from  there  that  all  the  southern  and 
maritime  parts  of  Europe  are  supplied  with  that 
character  of  marble. 

2.  Who  should  make  it?  There  can  be  but  one 
answer  to  this.  Old  Canova,  of  Rome.  No  artist 
in  Europe  would  place  himself  in  a  line  with  him ;  and 


Correspondence  409 

for  thirty  years,  within  my  own  knowledge,  he  has 
been  considered  by  all  Europe,  as  without  a  rival. 
He  draws  his  blocks  from  Carrara,  and  delivers  the 
statue  complete,  and  packed  for  transportation,  at 
Rome;  from  thence  it  descends  the  Tiber,  but 
whether  it  must  go  to  Leghorn,  or  some  other  ship- 
ping port,  I  do  not  know. 

3.  Price,  time,  size,  and  style?  It  will  probably 
take  a  couple  of  years  to  be  ready.  I  am  not  able 
to  be  exact  as  to  the  price.  We  gave  Houdon,  at 
Paris,  one  thousand  guineas  for  the  one  he  made  for 
this  State;  but  he  solemnly  and  feelingly  protested 
against  the  inadequacy  of  the  price,  and  evidently 
undertook  it  on  motives  of  reputation  alone.  He 
was  the  first  artist  in  France,  and  being  willing  to 
come  over  to  take  the  model  of  the  General,  which 
we  could  not  have  got  Canova  to  have  done,  that  cir- 
cumstance decided  on  his  employment.  We  paid 
him  additionally  for  coming  over  about  five  hundred 
guineas;  and  when  the  statue  was  done,  we  paid  the 
expenses  of  one  of  his  under  workmen  to  come  over 
and  set  it  up,  which  might,  perhaps,  be  one  hundred 
guineas  more.  I  suppose,  therefore,  it  cost  us,  in  the 
whole,  eight  thousand  dollars.  But  this  was  only 
of  the  size  of  life.  Yours  should  be  something  larger. 
The  difference  it  makes  in  the  impression  can  scarcely 
be  conceived.  As  to  the  style  or  costume,  I  am  sure 
the  artist,  and  every  person  of  taste  in  Europe,  would 
be  for  the  Roman,  the  effect  of  which  is  undoubtedly 
of  a  different  order.     Our  boots  and  regimentals  have 


4io  Jefferson's  Works 

a  very  puny  effect.  Works  of  this  kind  are  about 
one-third  cheaper  at  Rome  than  Paris;  but  Canova's 
eminence  will  be  a  sensible  ingredient  in  price.  I 
think  that  for  such  a  statue,  with  a  plain  pedestal, 
you  would  have  a  good  bargain  from  Ganova  at  seven 
or  eight  thousand  dollars,  and  should  not  be  sur- 
prised were  he  to  require  ten  thousand  dollars,  to 
which  you  would  have  to  add  the  charges  of  bringing 
over  and  setting  up.  The  one-half  of  the  price  would 
probably  have  to  be  advanced,  and  the  other  half 
paid  on  delivery. 

4.  From  what  model?  Ciracchi  made  the  bust  of 
General  Washington  in  plaster.  It  was  the  finest 
which  came  from  his  hand,  and  my  own  opinion  of 
Ciracchi  was,  that  he  was  second  to  no  sculptor  living 
except  Canova;  and,  if  he  had  lived,  would  have 
rivalled  him.  His  style  had  been  formed  on  the  fine 
models  of  antiquity  in  Italy,  and  he  had  caught  their 
ineffable  majesty  of  expression.  On  his  return  to 
Rome,  he  made  the  bust  of  the  General  in  marble, 
from  that  in  plaster;  it  was  sent  over  here,  was  uni- 
versally considered  as  the  best  effigy  of  him  ever  exe- 
cuted, was  bought  by  the  Spanish  Minister  for  the 
King  of  Spain,  and  sent  to  Madrid.  After  the  death 
of  Ciracchi,  Mr.  Apple  ton,  our  Consul  at  Leghorn,  a 
man  of  worth  and  taste,  purchased  of  his  widow  the 
original  plaster,  with  a  view  to  profit  by  copies  of 
marble  and  plaster  from  it.  He  still  has  it  at  Leg- 
horn; and  it  is  the  only  original  from  which  the 
statue  can  be  formed.     But  the  exterior  of  the  figure 


Correspondence  4  *  i 

will  also  be  wanting,  that  is  to  say,  the  outward  linea- 
ments of  the  body  and  members,  to  enable  the  artist 
to  give  to  them  also  their  true  forms  and  proportions. 
There  are,  I  believe,  in  Philadelphia,  whole-length 
paintings  of  General  Washington,  from  which,  I  pre- 
sume, old  Mr.  Peale  or  his  son  would  sketch  on  canvas 
the  mere  outlines  at  no  great  charge.  This  sketch, 
with  Ciracchi's  bust,  will  suffice. 

5.  Through  whose  agency?  None  so  ready  or  so 
competent  as  Mr.  Apple  ton  himself ;  he  has  had  rela- 
tions with  Canova,  is  a  judge  of  price,  convenient  to 
engage  the  work,  to  attend  to  its  progress,  to  receive 
and  forward  it  to  North  Carolina.  Besides  the  accom- 
modation of  the  original  bust  to  be  asked  from  him, 
he  will  probably  have  to  go  to  Rome  himself,  to  make 
the  contract,  and  will  incur  a  great  deal  of  trouble 
besides,  from  that  time  to  the  delivery  in  North  Caro- 
lina; and  it  should  therefore  be  made  a  matter  of 
interest  with  him  to  act  in  it,  as  his  time  and  trouble 
is  his  support.  I  imagine  his  agency  from  beginning 
to  end  would  not  be  worth  less  than  from  one  to  two 
hundred  guineas.  I  particularize  all  these  things, 
that  you  may  not  be  surprised  with  after-claps  of 
expense,  not  counted  on  beforehand.  Mr.  Appleton 
has  two  nephews  at  Baltimore,  both  in  the  mercan- 
tile line,  and  in  correspondence  with  him.  Should 
the  Governor  adopt  this  channel  of  execution,  he  will 
have  no  other  trouble  than  that  of  sending  to  them 
his  communications  for  Mr.  Appleton,  and  making 
the  remittances  agreed  on  as  shall  be  convenient  to 


4 1 2  Jeff ersdixV  Works 

himself.  A  letter  from  the  Secretary  of  State  to  Mr. 
Appleton,  informing  him  that  any  service  he  can 
render  the  State  of  North  Carolina  in  this  business, 
would  be  gratifying  to  his  government,  would  not 
be  without  effect.  s 

Accept   the   assurance   of  my   great   esteem   and 
respect. 


TO    JOSEPH    C    CABELL. 

Monticello,  January  24,   1816. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  the  16th  experienced 
great  delay  on  the  road,  and  to  avoid  that  of  another 
mail,  I  must  answer  very  briefly. 

My  letter  to  Peter  Carr  contains  all  I  ever  wrote 
on  the  subject  of  the  College,  a  plan  for  the  institu- 
tion being  the  only  thing  the  trustees  asked  or  ex- 
pected from  me.  Were  it  to  go  into  execution,  I 
should  certainly  interest  myself  further  and  strongly 
in  procuring  proper  professors. 

The  establishment  of  a  Proctor  is  taken  from  the 
practice  of  Europe,  where  an  equivalent  officer 'is 
made  a  part,  and  is  a  very  essential  one,  of  every  such 
institution;  and  as  the  nature  of  his  functions  re- 
quires that  he  should  always  be  a  man  of  discretion, 
understanding,  and  integrity,  above  the  common 
level,  it  was  thought  that  he  would  never  be  less 
worthy  of  being  trusted  with  the  powers  of  a  justice, 
within  the  limits  of  institution  here,  than  the  neigh- 
boring justices  generally  are;    and  the  vesting  him 


Correspondence  413 

with  the  conservation  of  the  peace  within  that  limit, 
was  intended,  while  it  should  equally  secure  its  object, 
to  shield  the  young  and  unguarded  student  from  the 
disgrace  of  the  common  prison,  except  where  the  case 
was  an  aggravated  one.  A  confinement  to  his  own 
room  was  meant  as  an  act  of  tenderness  to  him,  his 
parents  and  friends;  in  fine,  it  was  to  give  them  a 
complete  police  of  their  own,  tempered  by  the  pater- 
nal attentions  of  their  tutors.  And,  certainly,  in  no 
country  is  such  a  provision  more  called  for  than  in 
this,  as  has  been  proved  from  times  of  old,  from  the 
regular  annual  riots  and  battles  between  the  students 
of  William  and  Mary  with  the  town  boys,  before  the 
Revolution,  quorum  pars  fui,  and  the  many  and  more 
serious  affrays  of  later  times.  Observe,  too,  that  our 
bill  proposes  no  exclusion  of  the  ordinary  magistrate, 
if  the  one  attached  to  the  institution  is  thought  to 
execute  his  power  either  partially  or  remissly. 

The  transfer  of  the  power  to  give  commencement 
to  the  Ward  or  Elementary  Schools  from  the  court 
and  aldermen  to  the  visitors,  was  proposed  because 
the  experience  of  twenty  years  has  proved  that  no 
court  will  ever  begin  it.  The  reason  is  obvious.  The 
members  of  the  courts  are  the  wealthy  members  of 
the  counties;  and  as  the  expenses  of  the  schools  are 
to  be  defrayed  by  a  contribution  proportioned  to  the 
aggregate  of  other  taxes  which  every  one  pays,  they 
consider  it  as  a  plan  to  educate  the  poor  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  rich.  It  proceeded,  too,  from  a  hope 
that  the  example  and  good  effects  being  exhibited 


4H  Jefferson's  Works 

in  one  county,  they  would  spread  from  county  to 
county  and  become  general.  The  modification  of 
the  law,  by  authorizing  the  alderman  to  require  the 
expense  of  tutorage  from  such  parents  as  are  able, 
would  render  trifling,  if  not  wholly  prevent,  any  call 
on  the  county  for  pecuniary  aid.  You  know  that 
nothing  better  than  a  log-house  is  required  for  these 
schools,  and  there  is  not  a  neighborhood  which  would 
not  meet  and  build  this  themselves  for  the  sake  of 
having  a  school  near  them. 

I  know  of  no  peculiar  advantage  which  Charlottes- 
ville offers  for  Mr.  Braidwood's  school  of  deaf  and 
dumb.  On  the  contrary,  I  should  think  the  vicinity 
of  the  seat  of  government  most  favorable  to  it.  I 
should  not  like  to  have  it  made  a  member  of  our  Col- 
lege. The  objects  of  the  two  institutions  are  funda- 
mentally distinct.  The  one  is  science,  the  other 
mere  charity.  It  would  be  gratuitously  taking  a 
boat  in  tow  which  may  impede,  but  cannot  aid  the 
motion  of  the  principal  institution. 

Ever  and  affectionately  yours. 


TO    REVEREND    NOAH    WORCESTER. 

Monticello,  January  29,  1816. 
Sir, — Your  letter  bearing  date  October  18th,  181 5, 
came  only  to  hand  the  day  before  yesterday,  which 
is  mentioned  to  explain  the  date  of  mine.  I  have  to 
thank  you  for  the  pamphlets  accompanying  it,  to  wit, 
the  Solemn  Review,  the  Friend  of  Peace  or  Special 


Correspondence  41 5 

Interview,  and  the  Friend  of  Peace,  No.  2 ;  the  first 
of  these  I  had  received  through  another  channel  some 
months  ago.  I  have  not  read  the  two  last  steadily 
through,  because  where  one  assents  to  propositions 
as  soon  as  announced  it  is  loss  of  time  to  read  the 
arguments  in  support  of  them.  These  numbers  dis- 
cuss the  first  branch  of  the  causes  of  war,  that  is  to 
say,  wars  undertaken  for  the  point  of  honor,  which 
you  aptly  analogize  with  the  act  of  duelling  between 
individuals,  and  reason  with  justice  from  the  one  to 
the  other.  Undoubtedly  this  class  of  wars  is,  in  the 
general,  what  you  state  them  to  be,  "  needless,  unjust 
and  inhuman,  as  well  as  anti-Christian. "  The  second 
branch  of  this  subject,  to  wit,  wars  undertaken  on 
account  of  wrong  done,  and  which  may  be  likened  to 
the  act  of  robbery  in  private  life,  I  presume  will  be 
treated  of  in  your  future  numbers.  I  observe  this 
class  mentioned  in  the  Solemn  Review,  p.  10,  and 
the  question  asked,  "  Is  it  common  for  a  nation  to 
obtain  a  redress  of  wrongs  by  war  ? '  The  answer 
to  this  question  you  will  of  course  draw  from  history. 
In  the  meantime,  reason  will  answer  it  on  grounds  of 
probability,  that  where  the  wrong  has  been  done  by 
a  weaker  nation,  the  stronger  one  has  generally  been 
able  to  enforce  redress;  but  where  by  a  stronger 
nation,  redress  by  war  has  been  neither  obtained  nor 
expected  by  the  weaker.  On  the  contrary,  the  loss 
has  been  increased  by  the  expenses  of  the  war  in 
blood  and  treasure.  Yet  it  may  have  obtained 
another  object  equally  securing  itself  from  future 


4i 6  Jefferson's  Works 

wrong.  It  may  have  retaliated  on  the  aggressor  losses 
of  blood  and  treasure  far  beyond  the  value  to  him 
of  the  wrong  he  had  committed,  and  thus  have  made 
the  advantage  of  that  too  dear  a  purchase  to  leave 
him  in  a  disposition  to  renew  the  wrong  in  future. 
In  this  way  the  loss  by  the  war  may  have  secured  the 
weaker  nation  from  loss  by  future  wrong.  The  case 
you  state  of  two  boxers,  both  of  whom  get  a  "  terrible 
bruising,"  is  apposite  to  this.  He  of  the  two  who 
committed  the  aggression  on  the  other,  although 
victor  in  the  scuffle,  yet  probably  finds  his  aggression 
not  worth  the  bruising  it  has  cost  him.  To  explain 
this  by  numbers,  it  is  alleged  that  Great  Britain  took 
from  us  before  the  late  war  near  one  thousand  ves- 
sels, and  that  during  the  war  we  took  from  her  four- 
teen hundred.  That  before  the  war  she  seized  and 
made  slaves  of  six  thousand  of  our  citizens,  and  that 
in  the  war  we  killed  more  than  six  thousand  of  her 
subjects,  and  caused  her  to  expend  such  a  sum  as 
amounted  to  four  or  five  thousand  guineas  a  head  for 
every  slave  she  made.  She  might  have  purchased 
the  vessels  she  took  for  less  than  the  value  of  those 
she  lost,  and  have  used  the  six  thousand  of  her  men 
killed  for  the  purposes  to  which  she  applied  ours, 
have  saved  the  four  or  five  thousand  guineas  a  head, 
and  obtained  a  character  of  justice  which  is  valuable 
to  a  nation  as  to  an  individual.  These  considera- 
tions, therefore,  leave  her  without  inducement  to 
plunder  property  and  take  men  in  future  on  such 
dear  terms.     I  neither  affirm  nor  deny  the  truth  of 


Correspondence  4  *  7 

these  allegations,  nor  is  their  truth  material  to  the 
question.  They  are  possible,  and  therefore  present 
a  case  which  will  claim  your  consideration  in  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  general  question  whether  any  degree 
of  injury  can  render  a  recourse  to  war  expedient? 
Still  less  do  I  propose  to  draw  to  myself  any  part  in 
this  discussion.  Age  and  its  effects  both  on  body 
and  mind,  has  weaned  my  attentions  from  public  sub- 
jects, and  left  me  unequal  to  the  labors  of  correspond- 
ence beyond  the  limits  of  my  personal  concerns.  I 
retire,  therefore,  from  the  question,  with  a  sincere 
wish  that  your  writings  may  have  effect  in  lessening 
this  greatest  of  human  evils,  and  that  you  may  retain 
life  and  health  to  enjoy  the  contemplation  of  this 
happy  spectacle ;  and  pray  you  to  be  assured  of  my 
great  respect. 


*-.*'  '■'«  ■<«»■■-»■ 


TO    JOSEPH    C.    CABELL. 

Monticello,  February  2d,   1816. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favors  of  the  23d  and  24th 
ultimo,  were  a  week  coming  to  us.  I  instantly  en- 
closed to  you  the  deeds  of  Captain  Miller,  but  I  un- 
derstand that  the  postmaster,  having  locked  his  mail 
before  they  got  to  the  office,  would  not  unlock  it  to 
give  them  a  passage. 

Having  been  prevented  from  retaining  my  collec- 
tion of  the  acts  and  journals  of  our  legislature  by  the 
lumping  manner  in  which  the  Committee  of  Congress 
chose  to  take  my  library,  it  may  be  useful  to  our 

vot.  XIV — 27 


418  Jefferson's  Works 

public  bodies  to  know  what  acts  and  journals  I  had, 
and  where  they  can  now  have  access  to  them.  I 
therefore  enclose  you  a  copy  of  my  catalogue,  which 
I  pray  you  to  deposit  in  the  Council  office  for  public 
use.  It  is  in  the  eighteenth  and  twenty-fourth  chap- 
ters they  will  find  what  is  interesting  to  them.  The 
form  of  the  catalogue  has  been  much  injured  in  the 
publication;  for  although  they  have  preserved  my 
division  into  chapters,  they  have  reduced  the  books 
in  each  chapter  to  alphabetical  order,  instead  of  the 
chronological  or  analytical  arrangements  I  had  given 
them.  You  wTill  see  sketches  of  what  were  my 
arrangements  at  the  heads  of  some  of  the  chapters. 

The  bill  on  the  obstructions  in  our  navigable  waters 
appears  to  me  proper;  as  do  also  the  amendments 
proposed.  I  think  the  State  should  reserve  a  right 
to  the  use  of  the  waters  for  navigation,  and  that 
where  an  individual  landholder  impedes  that  use, 
he  shall  remove  that  impediment,  and  leave  the  sub- 
ject in  as  good  a  state  as  nature  formed  it.  This  I 
hold  to  be  the  true  principle;  and  to  this  Colonel 
Green's  amendments  go.  All  I  ask  in  my  own  case 
is,  that  the  legislature  will  not  take  from  me  my  own 
works.  I  am  ready  to  cut  my  dam  in  any  place,  and 
at  any  moment  requisite,  so  as  to  remove  that  im- 
pediment, if  it  be  thought  one,  and  to  leave  those 
interested  to  make  the  most  of  the  natural  circum- 
stances of  the  place.  But  I  hope  they  will  never 
take  from  me  my  canal,  made  through  the  body  of 
my  own  lands,  at  an  expense  of  twenty  thousand 


Correspondence  4 i 9 

dollars,  and  which  is  no  impediment  to  the  naviga- 
tion of  the  river.  I  have  permitted  the  riparian  pro- 
prietors above  (and  they  not  more  than  a  dozen  or 
twenty)  to  use  it  gratis,  and  shall  not  withdraw  the 
permission  unless  they  so  use  it  as  to  obstruct  too 
much  the  operations  of  my  mills,  of  which  there  is 
some  likelihood. 

Doctor  Smith,  you  say,  asks  what  is  the  best  ele- 
mentary book  on  the  principles  of  government? 
None  in  the  world  equal  to  the  Review  of  Montes- 
quieu, printed  at  Philadelphia  a  few  years  ago.  It 
has  the  advantage,  too,  of  being  equally  sound  and 
corrective  of  the  principles  of  political  economy;  and 
all  within  the  compass  of  a  thin  8vo.  Chipman's  and 
Priestley's  Principles  of  Government,  and  the  Fed- 
eralists, are  excellent  in  many  respects,  but  for  funda- 
mental principles  not  comparable  to  the  Review.  I 
have  no  objections  to  the  printing  my  letter  to  Mr. 
Carr,  if  it  will  promote  the  interests  of  science; 
although  it  was  not  written  with  a  view  to  its  publi- 
cation. 

My  letter  of  the  24th  ultimo  conveyed  to  you  the 
grounds  of  the  two  articles  objected  to  in  the  College 
bill.  Your  last  presents  one  of  tl\em  in  a  new  point 
of  view,  that  of  the  commencement  of  the  ward 
schools  as  likely  to  render  the  law  unpopular  to  the 
country.  It  must  be  a  very  inconsiderate  and  rough 
process  of  execution  that  would  do  this.  My  idea 
of  the  mode  of  carrying  it  into  execution  would  be 
this:    Declare   the   county  ipso  facto   divided  into 


420  Jefferson's  Works 

wards  for  the  present,  by  the  boundaries  of  the  militia 
captaincies;  somebody  attend  the  ordinary  muster 
of  each  company,  having  first  desired  the  captain  to 
call  together  a  full  one.  There  explain  the  object  of 
the  law  to  the  people  of  the  company,  put  to  their 
vote  whether  they  will  have  a  school  established,  and 
the  most  central  and  convenient  place  for  it;  get 
them  to  meet  and  build  a  log  school-house;  have  a 
roll  taken  of  the  children  who  would  attend  it,  and  of 
those  of  them  able  to  pay.  These  would  probably  be 
sufficient  to  support  a  common  teacher,  instructing 
gratis  the  few  unable  to  pay.  If  there  should  be  a 
deficiency,  it  would  require  too  trifling  a  contribution 
from  the  county  to  be  complained  of ;  and  especially 
as  the  whole  county  would  participate,  where  neces- 
sary, in  the  same  resource.  Should  the  company,  by 
its  vote,  decide  that  it  would  have  no  school,  let  them 
remain  without  one.  The  advantages  of  this  pro- 
ceeding would  be  that  it  would  become  the  duty  of 
the  alderman  elected  by  the  county,  to  take  an  active 
part  in  pressing  the  introduction  of  schools,  and  to 
look  out  for  tutors.  If,  however,  it  is  intended  that 
the  State  government  shall  take  this  business  into  its 
own  hands,  and  provide  schools  for  every  county, 
then  by  all  means  strike  out  this  provision  of  our  bill. 
I  would  never  wish  that  it  should  be  placed  on  a 
worse  footing  than  the  rest  of  the  State.  But  if  it  is 
believed  that  these  elementary  schools  will  be  better 
managed  by  the  Governor  and  Council,  the  commis- 
sioners of  the  literary  fund,  or  any  other  general 


Correspondence  42 1 

authority  of  the  government,  than  by  the  parents 
within  each  ward,  it  is  a  belief  against  all  experience. 
Try  the  principle  one  step  further,  and  amend  the 
bill  so  as  to  commit  to  the  Governor  and  Council  the 
management  of  all  our  farms,  our  mills,  and  mer- 
chants' stores.  No,  my  friend,  the  way  to  have  good 
and  safe  government,  is  not  to  trust  it  all  to  one,  but 
to  divide  it  among  the  many,  distributing  to  every 
one  exactly  the  functions  he  is  competent  to.  Let 
the  national  government  be  entrusted  with  the  de- 
fence of  the  nation,  and  its  foreign  and  federal  rela- 
tions; the  State  governments  with  the  civil  rights, 
laws,  police,  and  administration  of  what  concerns  the 
State  generally ;  the  counties  with  the  local  concerns 
of  the  counties,  and  each  ward  direct  the  interests 
within  itself.  It  is  by  dividing  and  subdividing 
these  republics  from  the  great  national  one  down 
through  all  its  subordinations,  until  it  ends  in  the 
administration  of  every  man's  farm  by  himself;  by 
placing  under  every  one  what  his  own  eye  may  super- 
intend, that  all  will  be  done  for  the  best.  What  has 
destroyed  liberty  and  the  rights  of  man  in  every  gov- 
ernment which  has  ever  existed  under  tr^e  sun  ?  The ' 
generalizing  and  concentrating  all  cares  and  powers 
into  one  body,  no  matter  whether  of  the  autocrats  of 
Russia  or  France,  or  of  the  aristocrat^  of  a  Venetian 
senate.  And  I  do  believe  that  if  the  Almighty  has 
not  decreed  that  man  shall  never  be  free,  (and  ft  is  a 
blasphemy  to  believe  it,)  that  the  secret  will  be  found 
to  be  in  the  making  himself  the  depository  of  the 


422  Jefferson *s  Works 

powers  respecting  himself,  so  far  as  he  is  competent 
to  them,  and  delegating  only  what  is  beyond  his  com- 
petence by  a  synthetical  process,  to  higher  and  higher 
orders  of  functionaries,  so  as  to  trust  fewer  and  fewer 
powers  in  proportion  as  the  trustees  become  more 
and  more  oligarchical.  The  elementary  republics  of 
the  wards,  the  county  republics,  the  State  republics, 
and  the  republic  of  the  Union,  would  form  a  grada- 
tion of  authorities,  standing  each  on  the  basis  of  law, 
holding  every  one  its  delegated  share  of  powers,  and 
constituting  truly  a  system  of  fundamental  balances 
and  checks  for  the  government.  Where  every  man 
is  a  sharer  in  the  direction  of  his  ward-republic,  or  of 
some  of  the  higher  ones,  and  feels  that  he  is  a  partici- 
pator in  the  government  of  affairs,  not  merely  at  an 
election  one  day  in  the  year,  but  every  day;  when 
there  shall  not  be  a  man  in  the  State  who  will  not  be 
a  member  of  some  one  of  its  councils,  great  or  small, 
he  will  let  the  heart  be  torn  out  of  his  body  sooner 
than  his  power  be  wrested  from  him  by  a  Caesar  or  a 
Bonaparte.  How  powerfully  did  we  feel  the  energy 
of  this  organization  in  the  case  of  embargo?  I  felt 
the  f ?undaj~lr>ns  of  the  government  shaken  under  my 
feet  by  t\e  New  ^n^an(i  townships.  There  was  not 
an  indiyi(iuai  in  their  States  whose  body  was  not 
thrown  with  a>^  ^s  momentum  into  action;  and 
although  the  -'^ole  of  the  other  States  were  known 
to  be  (in  fa-/or  °^  the  measure>  yet  the  organization  of 
this  Ixitcie  selfish  minority  enabled  it  to  overrule  the 
"Union.     What  would  the  unwieldy  counties  of  the 


Correspondence  423 

Middle,  the  South,  and  the  West  do?  Call  a  county 
meeting,  and  the  drunken  loungers  at  and  about  the 
court-houses  would  have  collected,  the  distances 
being  too  great  for  the  good  people  and  the  indus- 
trious generally  to  attend.  The  character  of  those 
who  really  met  would  have  been  the  measure  of  the 
weight  they  would  have  had  in  the  scale  of  public 
opinion.  As  Cato,  then,  concluded  every  speech 
with  the  words,  "  Carthago  delenda  est"  so  do  I  every 
opinion,  with  the  injunction,  "  divide  the  counties 
into  wards."  Begin  them  only  for  a  single  purpose; 
they  will  soon  show  for  what  others  they  are  the  best 
instruments.  God  bless  you,  and  all  our  rulers,  and 
give  them  the  wisdom,  as  I  am  sure  they  have  the 
will,  to  fortify  us  against  the  degeneracy  of  our  gov- 
ernment, and  the  concentration  of  all  its  powers  in 
the  hands  of  the  one,  the  few,  the  well-born  or  the 
many. 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  February  2,   18 16. 

Dear  Sir, — I  know  not  what  to  think  of  your  letter 
of  the  1  ith  of  January,  but  that  it  is  one  of  the  most 
consolatory  I  ever  received. 

To  trace  the  commencement  of  the  Reformation, 
I  suspect  we  must  go  farther  back  than  Borgia,  or 
even  Huss  or  Wickliffe,  and  I  want  the  Acta  Sancto- 
rum to  assist  me  in  this  research.  That  stupendous 
monument  of  human  hypocrisy  and  fanaticism,  the 


424  Jefferson's  Works 

church  of  St.  Peter  at  Rome,  which  was  a  century  and 
a  half  in  building,  excited  the  ambition  of  Leo  the 
Xth,  who  believed  no  more  of  the  Christian  religion 
than  Diderot,  to  finish  it;  and  finding  St.  Peter's 
pence  insufficient,  he  deluged  all  Europe  with  indul- 
gences for  sale,  and  excited  Luther  to  controvert  his 
authority  to  grant  them.  Luther,  and  his  associates 
and  followers,  went  less  than  half  way  in  detecting 
the  corruptions  of  Christianity,  but  they  acquired 
reverence  and  authority  among  their  followers  almost 
as  absolute  as  that  of  the  Popes  had  been. 

To  enter  into  details  would  be  endless ;  but  I  agree 
with  you,  that  the  natural  effect  of  science  and  arts 
is  to  erect  public  opinion  into  a  censor,  which  must 
in  some  degree  be  respected  by  all. 

There  is  no  difference  of  opinion  or  feeling  between 
us,  concerning  the  partition  of  Poland,  the  intended 
partitions  of  Pilnitz,  or  the  more  daring  partitions  of 
Vienna. 

Your  question  "  How  the  apostasy  from  national 
rectitude  can  be  accounted  for?'?  is  too  deep  and 
wide  for  my  capacity  to  answer.  I  leave  Fisher  Ames 
to  dogmatize  up  the  affairs  of  Europe  and  mankind. 
I  have  done  too  much  in  this  way.  A  burned  child 
dreads  the  fire.  I  can  only  say  at  present,  that  it 
should  seem  that  human  reason,  and  human  con- 
science, though  I  believe  there  are  such  things,  are 
not  a  match  for  human  passions,  human  imagina- 
tions, and  human  enthusiasm.  You,  however,  I 
believe,  have  hit  one  mark,  "the  fires  the  govern- 


Correspondence  425 

ments  of  Europe  felt  kindling  under  their  seats ; ' '  and 
I  will  hazard  a  shot  at  another,  the  priests  of  all 
nations  imagined  they  felt  approaching  such  flames, 
as  they  had  so  often  kindled  about  the  bodies  of 
honest  men.  Priests  and  politicians,  never  before, 
so  suddenly  and  so  unanimously  concurred  in  re- 
establishing darkness  and  ignorance,  superstition  and 
despotism.  The  morality  of  Tacitus  is  the  morality 
of  patriotism,  and  Britain  and  France  have  adopted 
his  creed;  i.  e.y  that  all  things  were  made  for  Rome. 
"Jura  negat  sibi  lata,  nihil  non  arrogat  armis,"  said 
Achilles.  "Laws  were  not  made  for  me,"  said  the 
Regent  of  France,  and  his  cardinal  minister  Du  Bois. 
The  universe  was  made  for  me,  says  man.  Jesus 
despised  and  condemned  such  patriotism;  but  what 
nation,  or  what  Christian,  has  adopted  His  system? 
He  was,  as  you  say,  "the  most  benevolent  Being  that 
ever  appeared  on  earth."  France  and  England, 
Bourbons  and  Bonaparte,  and  all  the  sovereigns  at 
Vienna,  have  acted  on  the  same  principle.  "All 
things  were  made  for  my  use.  So  man  for  mine, 
replies  a  pampered  goose."  The  philosophers  of  the 
eighteenth  century  have  acted  on  the  same  principle. 
When  it  is  to  combat  evil,  'tis  lawful  to  employ  the 
devil.  Bonus  populus  vult  decipi,  decipiatur.  They 
have  employed  the  same  falsehood,  the  same  deceit, 
which  philosophers  and  priests  of  all  ages  have  em- 
ployed for  their  own  selfish  purposes.  We  now  know 
how  their  efforts  have  succeeded.  The  old  deceivers 
have  triumphed  over  the  new.     Truth  must  be  more 


426  Jefferson's  Works 

respected  than  it  has  eveij  been,  before  any  great  im- 
provement can  be  expected  in  the  condition  of  man- 
kind. As  Rochefoucauld  his  maxims  drew  "from 
history  and  from  practice,"  I  believe  them  true. 
From  the  whole  nature  of  man,  moral,  intellectual, 
and  physical,  he  did  not  draw  them. 

We  must  come  to  the  principles  of  Jesus.  But 
when  will  all  men  and  all  nations  do  as  they  would 
be  done  by?  Forgive  all  injuries,  and  love  their  ene- 
mies as  themselves?  I  leave  those  profound  phi- 
losophers, whose  sagacity  perceives  the  perfectibility 
of  human  nature ;  and  those  illuminated  theologians, 
who  expect  the  Apocalyptic  reign; — to  enjoy  their 
transporting  hopes,  provided  always  that  they  will 
not  engage  us  in  Crusades  and  French  Revolutions, 
nor  burn  us  for  doubting.  My  spirit  of  prophecy 
reaches  no  farther  than  New  England  guesses. 

You  ask,  how  it  has  happened  that  all  Europe  has 
acted  on  the  principle,  "that  Power  was  Right."  I 
know  not  what  answer  to  give  you,  but  this,  that 
Power  always  sincerely,  conscientiously,  de  tres  bon 
foi,  believes  itself  right.  Power  always  thinks  it  has 
a  great  soul,  and  vast  views,  beyond  the  comprehen- 
sion of  the  weak;  and  that  it  is  doing  God  service, 
when  it  is  violating  all  His  laws.  Our  passions,  ambi- 
tion, avarice,  love,  resentment,  etc.,  possess  so  much 
metaphysical  subtlety,  and  so  much  overpowering 
eloquence,  that  they  insinuate  themselves  into  the 
understanding  and  the  conscience,  and  convert  both 
to  their  party;   and  I  may  be  deceived  as  much  as 


Correspondence  427 

any  of  them,  when  I  say,  that  Power  must  never  be 
trusted  without  a  check. 

Morgan  has  misrepresented  my  guess.  There  is 
not  a  word  in  my  letter  about  "  a  million  of  human 
beings."  Civil  wars,  of  an  hundred  years,  through- 
out Europe,  were  guessed  at;  and  this  is  broad 
enough  for  your  ideas ;  for  eighteen  or  twenty  mil- 
lions would  be  a  moderate  computation  for  a  century 
of  civil  wars  throughout  Europe.  I  still  pray  that 
a  century  of  civil  wars  may  not  desolate  Europe,  and 
America  too,  south  and  north. 

Your  speculations  into  futurity  in  Europe  are  so 
probable,  that  I  can  suggest  no  doubt  to  their  disad- 
vantage. All  will  depend  on  the  progress  of  knowl- 
edge. But  how  shall  knowledge  advance?  Inde- 
pendent of  temporal  and  spiritual  power,  the  course 
of  science  and  literature  is  obstructed  and  discour- 
aged by  so  many  causes  that  it  is  to  be  feared  their 
motions  will  be  slow.  I  have  just  finished  reading 
four  volumes  of  DTsraeli's — two  on  the  "  Calami- 
ties, "  and  two  on  the  "  Quarrels  of  Authors. "  These 
would  be  sufficient  to  show  that,  slow  rises  genius  by 
poverty  and  envy  oppressed.  Even  Newton,  and 
Locke,  and  Grotius,  could  not  escape.  France  could 
furnish  four  other  volumes  of  the  woes  and  wars  of 
authors. 

My  compliments  to  Mrs.  Randolph,  her  daughter 
Ellen,  and  all  her  other  children;  and  believe  me,  as 
ever. 

To  which  Mrs.  Adams  adds  her  affectionate  regard, 


428  Jefferson's  Works 

and  a  wish  that  distance  did  not  separate  souls  con- 
genial. 


TO    THOMAS    W.    MAURY. 

Monticello,  February  3,   1816. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  the  24th  ultimo  was  a 
week  on  its  way  to  me,  and  this  is  our  first  subsequent 
mail  day.  Mr.  Cabell  had  written  to  me  also  on  the 
want  of  the  deeds  in  Captain  Miller's  case ;  and  as  the 
bill  was  in  that  House,  I  enclosed  them  immediately 
to  him.  I  forgot,  however,  to  desire  that  they  might 
be  returned  when  done  with,  and  must,  therefore,  ask 
this  friendly  attention  of  you. 

You  ask  me  for  observations  on  the  memorandum 
you  transcribe,  relating  to  a  map  of  the  States,  a 
mineralogical  survey  and  statistical  tables.  The  field 
is  very  broad,  and  new  to  me.  I  have  never  turned 
my  mind  to  this  combination  of  objects,  nor  am  I  at 
all  prepared  to  give  an  opinion  on  it.  On  what  prin- 
ciples the  association  of  objects  may  go  that  far 
and  not  farther,  whether  we  could  find  a  character 
who  would  undertake  the  mineralogical  survey,  and 
who  is  qualified  for  it,  whether  there  would  be  room 
for  its  designations  on  a  well-filled  geographical  map, 
and  also  for  the  statistical  details,  I  cannot  say.  The 
best  mineralogical  charts  I  have  seen,  have  had  noth- 
ing geographical  but  the  water-courses,  ranges  of 
hills,  and  most  remarkable  places,  and  have  been 
colored,  so  as  to  present  to  the  eye  the  mineralogical 


Correspondence  429 

ranges.  For  the  articles  of  a  statistical  table,  I  think 
the  last  census  of  Congress  presented  what  was 
proper,  as  far  as  it  went,  but  did  not  go  far  enough. 
It  required  detailed  accounts  of  our  manufactures, 
and  an  enumeration  of  our  people,  according  to  ages, 
sexes,  and  colors.  But  to  this  should  be  added  an 
enumeration  according  to '  their  occupations.  We 
should  know  what  proportion  of  our  people  are  em- 
ployed in  agriculture,  what  proportion  are  carpen- 
ters, smiths,  shoemakers,  tailors,  bricklayers,  mer- 
chants, seamen,  etc.  No  question  is  more  curious 
than  that  of  the  distribution  of  society  into  occupa- 
tions, and  none  more  wanting.  I  have  never  heard 
of  such  tables  being  effected  but  in  the  instance  of 
Spain,  where  it  was  first  done  under  the  administra- 
tion, I  believe,  of  Count  D'Aranda,  and  a  second  time 
under  the  Count  de  Florida  Blanca,  and  these  have 
been  considered  as  the  most  curious  and  valuable 
tables  in  the  world.  The  combination  of  callings 
with  us  would  occasion  some  difficulty,  many  of  our 
tradesmen  being,  for  instance,  agriculturists  also; 
but  they  might  be  classed  under  their  principal  occu- 
pation. On  the  geographical  branch  I  have  reflected 
occasionally.  I  suppose  a  person  would  be  employed 
in  every  county  to  put  together  the  private  surveys, 
either  taken  from  the  surveyors'  books  or  borrowed 
from  the  proprietors,  to  connect  them  by  supple- 
mentary surveys,  and  to  survey  the  public  roads, 
noting  towns,  habitations,  and  remarkable  places, 
by  which  means  a  special  delineation  of  water-courses, 


43°  Jefferson's  Works 

roads,  etc.,  will  be  obtained.  But  it  will  be  further 
indispensable  to  obtain  the  latitudes  and  longitudes 
of  principal  points  in  every  county,  in  order  to  cor- 
rect the  errors  of  the  topographical  surveys,  to  bring 
them  together,  and  to  assign  to  each  county  its  exact 
space  on  the  map.  These  observations  of  latitude 
and  longitude  might  be  'taken  for  the  whole  State, 
by  a  single  person  well  qualified,  in  the  course  of  a 
couple  of  years.  I  could  offer  some  ideas  on  that 
subject  to  abridge  and  facilitate  the  operations,  and 
as  to  the  instruments  to  be  used;  but  such  details 
are  probably  not  within  the  scope  of  your  inquiries, — 
they  would  be  in  time  if  communicated  to  those  who 
will  have  the  direction  of  the  work.  I  am  sorry  I  am 
so  little  prepared  to  offer  anything  more  satisfactory 
to  your  inquiries  than  these  extempore  hints.  But 
I  have  no  doubt  that  what  is  best  will  occur  to  those 
gentlemen  of  the  legislature  who  have  had  the  sub- 
ject under  their  contemplation,  and  who,  impressed 
with  its  importance,  are  exerting  themselves  to  pro- 
cure its  execution.  Accept  the  assurance  of  my  great 
esteem  and  respect. 


TO    JAMES    MONROE. 

Monticello,  February  4,   18 16. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  letter  concerning  that  of  General 

Scott  is  received,  and  his  is  now  returned.     I  am  very 

thankful   for   these    communications.     From   forty 

years'  experience  of  the  wretched  guess-work  of  the 


Correspondence  43 1 

newspapers  of  what  is  not  done  in  open  daylight,  and 
of  their  falsehood  even  as  to  that,  I  rarely  think  them 
worth  reading,  and  almost  never  worth  notice.  A 
ray,  therefore,  now  and  then,  from  the  fountain  of 
light,  is  like  sight  restored  to  the  blind.  It  tells  me 
where  I  am ;  and  that  to  a  mariner  who  has  long  been 
without  sight  of  land  or  sun,  is  a  rallying  of  reckon- 
ing which  places  him  at  ease.  The  ground  you  have 
taken  with  Spain  is  sound  in  every  part.  It  is  the 
true  ground,  especially,  as  to  the  South  Americans. 
When  subjects  are  able  to  maintain  themselves  in 
the  field,  they  are  then  an  independent  power  as  to 
all  neutral  nations,  are  entitled  to  their  commerce, 
and  to  protection  within  their  limits.  Every  kind- 
ness which  can  be  shown  the  South  Americans,  every 
friendly  office  and  aid  within  the  limits  of  the  law  of 
nations,  I  would  extend  to  them,  without  fearing 
Spain  or  her  Swiss  auxiliaries.  For  this  is  but  an 
assertion  of  our  own  independence.  But  to  join  in 
their  war,  as  General  Scott  proposes,  and  to  which 
even  some  members  of  Congress  seem  to  squint,  is 
what  we  ought  not  to  do  as  yet.  On  the  question 
of  our  interest  in  their  independence,  were  that  alone 
a  sufficient  motive  of  action,  much  may  be  said  on 
both  sides.  When  they  are  free,  they  will  drive 
every  article  of  our  produce  from  every  market,  by 
underselling  it,  and  change  the  condition  of  our  ex- 
istence, forcing  us  into  other  habits  and  pursuits. 
We  shall,  indeed,  have  in  exchange  some  commerce 
with  them,  but  in  what  I  know  not,  for  we  shall  have 


432  Jefferson's  Works 

nothing  to  offer  which  they  cannot  raise  cheaper ;  and 
their  separation  from  Spain  seals  our  everlasting 
peace  with  her.  On  the  other  hand,  so  long  as  they 
are  dependent,  Spain,  from  her  jealousy,  is  our  natu- 
ral enemy,  and  always  in  either  open  or  secret  hos- 
tility with  us.  These  countries,  too,  in  war,  will  be 
a  powerful  weight  in  her  scale,  and,  in  peace,  totally 
shut  to  us.  Interest  then,  on  the  whole,  would  wish 
their  independence,  and  justice  makes  the  wish  a 
duty.  They  have  a  right  to  be  free,  and  we  a  right  to 
aid  them,  as  a  strong  man  has  a  right  to  assist  a  weak 
one  assailed  by  a  robber  or  murderer.  That  a  war  is 
brewing  between  us  and  Spain  cannot  be  doubted. 
When  that  disposition  is  matured  on  both  sides,  and 
open  rupture  can  no  longer  be  deferred,  then  will  be 
the  time  for  our  joining  the  South  Americans,  and 
entering  into  treaties  of  alliance  with  them.  There 
will  then  be  but  one  opinion,  at  home  or  abroad,  that 
we  shall  be  justifiable  in  choosing  to  have  them  with 
us,  rather  than  against  us.  In  the  meantime,  they 
will  have  organized  regular  governments,  and  per- 
haps have  formed  themselves  into  one  or  more  con- 
federacies ;  more  than  one  I  hope,  as  in  single  mass 
they  would  be  a  very  formidable  neighbor.  The  geo- 
graphy of  their  country  seems  to  indicate  three:  i. 
What  is  north  of  the  Isthmus.  2.  What  is  south 
of  it  on  the  Atlantic;  and  3.  The  southern  part  on 
the  Pacific.  In  this  form,  we  might  be  the  balancing 
power.  A  propos  of  the  dispute  with  Spain,  as  to 
the  boundary  of  Louisiana.     On  our  acquisition  of 


Correspondence  433 

that  country,  there  was  found  in  possession  of  the 
family  of  the  late  Governor  Messier,  a  most  valuable 
and  original  MS.  history  of  the  settlement  of  Louisi- 
ana by  the  French,  written  by  Bernard  de  la  Harpe, 
a  principal  agent  through  the  whole  of  it.  It  com- 
mences with  the  first  permanent  settlement  of  1699, 
(that  by  de  la  Salle  in  1684,  having  been  broken  up,) 
and  continues  to  1723,  and  shows  clearly  the  con- 
tinual claim  of  France  to  the  Province  of  Texas,  as 
far  as  the  Rio  Bravo,  and  to  all  the  waters  running 
into  the  Mississippi,  and  how,  by  the  roguery  of  St. 
Denis,  an  agent  of  Crozat,  the  merchant,  to  whom 
the  colony  was  granted  for  ten  years,  the  settlements 
of  the  Spaniards  at  Nacadoches,  Adais,  Assinays,  and 
Natchitoches,  were  fraudulently  invited  and  con- 
nived at.  Crozat's  object  was  commerce,  and  espe- 
cially contraband,  with  the  Spaniards,  and  these 
posts  were  settled  as  convenient  smuggling  stages 
on  the  way  to  Mexico.  The  history  bears  such  marks 
of  authenticity  as  place  it  beyond  question.  Gov- 
ernor Claiborne  obtained  the  MS.  for  us,  and  thinking 
it  too  hazardous  to  risk  its  loss  by  the  way,  unless  a 
copy  were  retained,  he  had  a  copy  taken.  The  orig- 
inal having  arrived  safe  at  Washington,  he  sent  me 
the  copy,  which  I  now  have.  Is  the  original  still  in 
your  office  ?  or  was  it  among  the  papers  burnt  by  the 
British?  If  lost,  I  will  send  you  my  copy;  if  pre- 
served, it  is  my  wish  to  deposit  the  copy  for  safe  keep- 
ing with  the  Philosophical  Society  at  Philadelphia, 
where  it  will  be  safer  than  on  my  shelves.     I  do  not 

VOL.    XIV-2S 


434  Jefferson's  Works 

mean  that  any  part  of  this  letter  shall  give  to  your- 
self the  trouble  of  an  answer;  only  desire  Mr.  Graham 
to  see  if  the  original  still  exists  in  your  office,  and  to 
drop  me  a  line  saying  yea  or  nay;  and  I  shall  know 
what  to  do.  Indeed  the  MS.  ought  to  be  printed; 
and  I  see  a  note  to  my  copy  which  shows  it  has  been 
in  contemplation,  and  that  it  was  computed  to  be 
of  twenty  sheets  at  sixteen  dollars  a  sheet,  for  three 
hundred  and  twenty  copies,  which  would  sell  at  one 
dollar  apiece,  and  reimburse  the  expense. 

On  the  question  of  giving  to  La  Motte  the  consul- 
ship of  Havre,  I  know  the  obstacle  of  the  Senate. 
Their  determination  to  appoint  natives  only  is  gen- 
erally proper,  but  not  always.  These  places  are  for 
the  most  part  of  little  consequence  to  the  public ;  and 
if  they  can  be  made  resources  of  profit  to  our  ex-mili- 
tary worthies,  they  are  so  far  advantageous.  You 
and  I,  however,  know  that  one  of  these  new  novices, 
knowing  nothing  of  the  laws  or  authorities  of  his  port, 
nor  speaking  a  word  of  its  language,  is  of  no  more 
account  than  the  fifth  wheel  of  a  coach.  Had  the 
Senate  a  power  of  removing  as  well  as  of  rejecting,  I 
should  have  fears,  from  their  foreign  antipathies,  for 
my  old  friend  Cathalan,  Consul  at  Marseilles.  His 
father  was  appointed  by  Dr.  Franklin,  early  in  the 
Revolutionary  war,  but  being  old,  the  business  was 
done  by  the  son.  On  the  establishment  of  our  present 
government,  the  commission  was  given  by  General 
Washington  to  the  son,  at  the  request  of  the  father. 
He  has  been  the  consul  now  twenty-six  years,  and 


Correspondence  435 

has  done  its  duties  nearly  forty  years.  He  is  a  man 
of  understanding,  integrity  and  zeal,  of  high  mercan- 
tile standing,  an  early  citizen  of  the  United  States, 
and  speaks  and  writes  our  language  as  fluently  as 
French.  His  conduct  in  office  has  been  without  a 
fault.  I  have  known  him  personally  and  intimately 
for  thirty  years,  have  a  great  and  affectionate  esteem 
for  him,  and  should  feel  as  much  hurt  were  he  to  be 
removed  as  if  removed  myself  from  an  office.  But  I 
trust  he  is  out  of  the  reach  of  the  Senate,  and  secure 
under  the  wings  of  the  executive  government.  Let 
me  recommend  him  to  your  particular  care  and 
patronage,  as  well  deserving  it,  and  end  the  trouble 
of  reading  a  long  letter  with  assurances  of  my  con- 
stant and  affectionate  friendship. 


TO    BENJAMIN    AUSTIN,    ESQ. 

Monticello,  February  9,   1816. 

Sir, — Your  favor  of  January  25th  is  just  now  re- 
ceived. I  am  in  general  extremely  unwilling  to  be 
carried  into  the  newspapers,  no  matter  what  the  sub- 
ject ;  the  whole  pack  of  the  Essex  kennel  would  open 
upon  me.  With  respect,  however,  to  so  much  of  my 
letter  of  January  9th  as  relates  to  manufactures,  I 
have  less  repugnance,  because  there  is  perhaps  a 
degree  of  duty  to  avow  a  change  of  opinion  called  for 
by  a  change  of  circumstances,  and  especially  on  a 
point  now  become  peculiarly  interesting. 

What  relates  to   Bonaparte  stands  on  different 


43 6  Jeff ef son's  Works 

ground.  You  think  it  will  silence  the  misrepresenta- 
tions of  my  enemies  as  to  my  opinions  of  him.  No, 
Sir;  it  will  not  silence  them.  They  had  no  ground 
either  in  my  words  or  actions  for  these  misrepresen- 
tations before,  and  cannot  have  less  afterwards;  nor 
will  they  calumniate  less.  There  is,  however,  a  con- 
sideration respecting  our  own  friends,  which  may 
merit  attention.  I  have  grieved  to  see  even  good 
republicans  so  infatuated  as  to  this  man,  as  to  con- 
sider his  downfall  as  calamitous  to  the  cause  of  lib- 
erty. In  their  indignation  against  England  which 
is  just,  they  seem  to  consider  all  her  enemies  as  our 
friends,  when  it  is  well  known  there  was  not  a  being 
on  earth  who  bore  us  so  deadly  a  hatred.  In  fact, 
he  saw  nothing  in  this  world  but  himself,  and  looked 
on  the  people  under  him  as  his  cattle,  beasts  for  bur- 
den and  slaughter.  Promises  cost  him  nothing  when 
they  could  serve  his  purpose.  On  his  return  from 
Elba,  what  did  he  not  promise?  But  those  who  had 
credited  them  a  little,  soon  saw  their  total  insignifi- 
cance, and,  satisfied  they  could  not  fall  under  worse 
hands,  refused  every  effort  after  the  defeat  of  Water- 
loo. Their  present  sufferings  will  have  a  term;  his 
iron  despotism  would  have  had  none.  France  has 
now  a  family  of  fools  at  its  head,  from  whom,  when- 
ever it  can  shake  off  its  foreign  riders,  it  will  extort 
a  free  Constitution,  or  dismount  them  and  establish 
some  other  on  the  solid  basis  of  national  right.  To 
whine  after  this  exorcised  demon  is  a  disgrace  to 
republicans,  and  must  have  arisen  either  from  want 


Correspondence  437 

of  reflection,  or  the  indulgence  of  passion  against 
principle.  If  anything  I  have  said  could  lead  them 
to  take  correcter  views,  to  rally  to  the  polar  princi- 
ples of  genuine  republicanism,  I  could  consent  that 
that  part  of  my  letter  also  should  go  into  a  newspaper. 
This  I  leave  to  yourself  and  such  candid  friends  as 
you  may  consult.  There  is  one  word  in  the  letter, 
however,  which  decency  towards  the  allied  sovereigns 
requires  should  be  softened.  Instead  of  despots,  call 
them  rulers.  The  first  paragraph,  too,  of  seven  or 
eight  lines,  must  be  wholly  omitted.     Trusting  all 

the  rest  to  your  discretion,  I  salute  you  with  great 
esteem  and  respect. 


JOHN    ADAMS    TO    THOMAS    JEFFERSON. 

Quincy,  March  2,   1816. 

Dear  Sir, — I  cannot  be  serious!  I  am  about  to 
write  you  the  most  frivolous  letter  you  ever  read. 

Would  you  go  back  to  your  cradle  and  live  over 
again  your  seventy  years?  I  believe  you  would 
return  me  a  New  England  answer,  by  asking  me 
another  question:  Would  you  live  your  eighty  years 
over  again? 

I  am  not  prepared  to  give  you  an  explicit  answer ; 
the  question  involves  so  many  considerations  of  meta- 
physics and  physics,  of  theology  and  ethics,  of  phi- 
losophy and  history,  of  experience  and  romance,  of 
tragedy,  comedy  and  farce,  that  I  would  not  give  my 
opinion  without  writing  a  volume  to  justify  it. 


43s  Jefferson's  Works 

I  have  lately  lived  over  again,  in  part,  from  1753, 
when  I  was  junior  sophister  at  college,  till  1769,  when 
I  was  digging  in  the  mines  as  a  barrister  at  law,  for 
silver  and  gold,  in  the  town  of  Boston;  and  got  as 
much  of  the  shining  dross  for  my  labor  as  my  utmost  * 
avarice  at  that  time  craved. 

At  the  hazard  of  all  the  little  vision  that  is  left  me, 
I  have  read  the  history  of  that  period  of  sixteen  years, 
in  the  volumes  of  the  Baron  de  Grimm.  In  a  late 
letter  to  you,  I  expressed  a  wish  to  see  a  history  of 
quarrels  and  calamities  of  authors  in  France,  like 
that  of  D 'Israeli  in  England.  I  did  not  expect  it  so 
soon ;  but  now  I  have  it  in  a  manner  more  masterly 
than  I  ever  hoped  to  see  it.  It  is  not  only  a  narration 
of  the  incessant  great  wars  between  the  ecclesiastics 
and  the  philosophers,  but  of  the  little  skirmishes  and 
squabbles  of  Poets,  Musicians,  Sculptors,  Painters, 
Architects,  Tragedians,  Comedians,  Opera-Singers 
and  Dancers,  Chansons,  Vaudevilles,  Epigrams,  Mad- 
rigals, Epitaphs,  Anagrams,  Sonnets,  etc.  No  man 
is  more  sensible  than  I  am  of  the  service  to  science 
and  letters,  Humanity,  Fraternity  and  Liberty,  that 
would  have  been  rendered  by  the  Encyclopedists  and 
Economists,  by  Voltaire,  D'Alembert,  Buffon,  Dide- 
rot, Rousseau,  La  Lande,  Frederick  and  Catherine, 
if  they  had  possessed  common  sense.  But  they  were 
all  totally  destitute  of  it.  They  all  seemed  to  think 
that  all  Christendom  was  convinced  as  they  were,  that 
all  religion  was  "visions  Judaicques,"  and  that  their 
effulgent  lights  had  illuminated  all  the  world.     They 


Correspondence  439 

seemed  to  believe,  that  whole  nations  and  continents 
had  been  changed  in  their  principles,  opinions,  habits 
and  feelings,  by  the  sovereign  grace  of  their  almighty 
philosophy,  almost  as  suddenly  as  Catholics  and  Cal- 
vinists  believe  in  instantaneous  conversion.  They 
had  not  considered  the  force  of  early  education  on 
the  millions  of  minds  who  had  never  heard  of  their 
philosophy.  And  what  was  their  philosophy  ?  Athe- 
ism; pure,  unadulterated  Atheism.  Diderot,  D'Alem- 
bert,  Frederick,  De  La  Lande  and  Grimm,  were  in- 
dubitable Atheists.  The  universe  was  matter  only, 
and  eternal;  spirit  was  a  word  without  a  meaning; 
liberty  was  a  word  without  a  meaning.  There  was 
no  liberty  in  the  universe ;  liberty  was  a  word  void 
of  sense.  Every  thought,  word,  passion,  sentiment, 
feeling,  all  motion,  and  action  was  necessary.  All 
beings  and  attributes  were  of  eternal  necessity ;  con- 
science, morality,  were  all  nothing  but  fate. 

This  was  their  creed,  and  this  was  to  perfect  human 
nature,  and  convert  the  earth  into  a  paradise  of  pleas- 
ure. 

Who,  and  what  is  this  fate  ?  He  must  be  a  sensible 
fellow.  He  must  be  a  master  of  science.  He  must 
be  a  master  of  spherical  trigonometry  and  great  cir- 
cle sailing.  He  must  calculate  eclipses  in  his  head  by 
intuition.  He  must  be  master  of  the  science  of  in- 
finitesimal— ■"  Le  science  des  infinimens  petits."  He 
must  involve  and  extract  all  the  roots  by  intuition, 
and  be  familiar  with  all  possible  or  imaginable  sec- 
tions of  the  cone.     He  must  be  a  master  of  arts, 


440  Jefferson's  Works 

mechanical  and  imitative.  He  must  have  more 
eloquence  than  Demosthenes,  more  wit  than  Swift 
or  Voltaire,  more  humor  than  Butler  or  Trumbull, 
and  what  is  more  comfortable  than  all  the  rest,  he 
must  be  good  natured;  for  this  is  upon  the  whole  a 
good  world.  There  is  ten  times  as  much  pleasure  as 
pain  in  it. 

Why  then  should  we  abhor  the  word  God,  and  fall 
in  love  with  the  word  Fate?  We  know  there  exists 
energy  and  intellect  enough  to  produce  such  a  world 
as  this,  which  is  a  sublime  and  beautiful  one,  and  a 
very  benevolent  one,  notwithstanding  all  our  snarl- 
ing; and  a  happy  one,  if  it  is  not  made  otherwise  by 
our  own  fault.  Ask  a  mite,  in  the  centre  of  your 
mammoth  cheese,  what  he  thinks  of  the  "to  wav," 

I  should  prefer  the  philosophy  of  Timaus,  of  Locris, 
before  that  of  Grimm  and  Diderot,  Frederick  and 
D'Alembert.  I  should  even  prefer  the  Shasta  of  Hin- 
dostan,  or  the  Chaldean,  Egyptian,  Indian,  Greek, 
Christian,  Mahometan,  Tubonic,  or  Celtic  theology. 
Timssus  and  Picellus  taught  that  three  principles 
were  eternal,  God,  Matter  and  Form.  God  was  good, 
and  had  ideas.  Matter  was  necessity.  Fate  dead — 
without  ideas — without  form,  without  feeling — per- 
verse, untractible;  capable,  however,  of  being  cut 
into  forms,  spheres,  circles,  triangles,  squares,  cubes, 
cones,  etc.  The  ideas  of  the  good  God  labored  upon 
matter  to  bring  it  into  form;  but  matter  was  fate, 
necessity,  dulness,  obstinacy — and  would  not  always 
conform  to  the  ideas  of  the  good  God  who  desired  to 


Correspondence  44* 

make  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds;  but  Matter, 
Fate,  Necessity,  resisted,  and  would  not  let  Him  com- 
plete His  idea.  Hence  all  the  evil  and  disorder,  pain, 
misery  and  imperfection  of  the  universe. 

We  all  curse  Robespierre  and  Bonaparte,  but  were 
they  not  both  such  restless,  vain,  extravagant  ani- 
mals as  Diderot  and  Voltaire?  Voltaire  was  the 
greatest  literary  character,  and  Bonaparte  the  great- 
est military  character  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
There  is  all  the  difference  between  them.  Both 
equally  heroes  and  equally  cowards. 

When  you  ask  my  opinion  of  a  University — it 
would  have  been  easy  to  advise  Mathematics,  experi- 
mental Philosophy,  Natural  History,  Chemistry  and 
Astronomy,  Geography  and  the  Fine  Arts;  to  the 
exclusion  of  Metaphysics  and  Theology.  But  know- 
ing the  eager  impatience  of  the  human  mind  to  search 
into  eternity  and  infinity,  the  first  cause  and  last  end 
of  all  things — I  thought  best  to  leave  it  its  liberty  to 
inquire  till  it  is  convinced,  as  I  have  been  these  fifty 
years,  that  there  is  but  one  Being  in  the  universe  who 
comprehends  it ;  and  our  last  resource  is  resignation. 

This  Grimm  must  have  been  in  Paris  when  you 
were  there.     Did  you  know  him,  or  hear  of  him? 

I  have  this  moment  received  two  volumes  more, 
but  these  are  from  1777  to  17 82, — leaving  the  chain 
broken  from  1769  to  1777.  I  hope  hereafter  to  get 
the  two  intervening  volumes.     I  am  your  old  friend. 


442  Jefferson's  Works 


TO  . 

Monticello,  March  13,   1816. 

A  writer  in  the  National  Intelligencer  of  February 
24th,  who  signs  himself  B.,  is  endeavoring  to  shelter 
tinder  the  cloak  of  General  Washington,  the  present 
enterprise  of  the  Senate  to  wrest  from  the  House  of 
Representatives  the  power,  given  them  by  the  Con- 
stitution, of  participating  with  the  Senate  in  the 
establishment  and  continuance  of  laws  on  specified 
subjects.  Their  aim  is,  by  associating  an  Indian 
chief,  or  foreign  government,  in  form  of  a  treaty,  to 
possess  themselves  of  the  power  of  repealing  laws 
become  obnoxious  to  them,  without  the  assent  of  the 
third  branch,  although  that  assent  was  necessary  to 
make  it  a  law.  We  are  then  to  depend  for  the  secure 
possession  of  our  laws,  not  on  our  immediate  repre- 
sentatives chosen  by  ourselves,  and  amenable  to  our- 
selves every  other  year,  but  on  Senators  chosen  by  the 
legislatures,  amenable  to  them  only,  and  that  but  at 
intervals  of  six  years,  which  is  nearly  the  common 
estimate  for  a  term  for  life .  But  no  act  of  that  sainted 
worthy,  no  thought  of  General  Washington,  ever 
countenanced  a  change  of  our  Constitution  so  vital 
as  would  be  the  rendering  insignificant  the  popular, 
and  giving  to  the  aristocratical  branch  of  our  govern- 
ment, the  power  of  depriving  us  of  our  laws. 

The  case  for  which  General  Washington  is  quoted 
is  that  of  his  treaty  with  the  Creeks,  wherein  was  a 
stipulation  that  their  supplies  of  goods  should  con- 

1  This  unaddressed  letter  signed  "A"  on  the  original  draft  in  Jeffer- 
son's handwriting. 


Correspondence  443 

tinue  to  be  imported  duty  free.  The  writer  of  this 
article  was  then  a  member  of  the  legislature,  as  he 
was  of  that  which  afterwards  discussed  the  British 
treaty,  and  recollects  the  facts  of  the  day,  and  the 
ideas  which  were  afloat.  The  goods  for  the  supplies 
of  the  Creeks  were  always  imported  into  the  Spanish 
ports  of  St.  Augustine,  Pensacola,  Mobile,  New  Or- 
leans, etc.,  (the  United  States  not  owning  then  one 
foot  of  coast  on  the  gulf  of  Mexico,  or  south  of  St. 
Mary's,)  and  from  these  ports  they  were  carried 
directly  into  the  Creek  country,  without  ever  enter- 
ing the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States.  In  that 
country  their  laws  pretended  to  no  more  force  than 
in  Florida  or  Canada.  No  officer  of  their  customs 
could  go  to  levy  duties  in  the  Spanish  or  Creek  coun- 
tries, out  of  which  these  goods  never  came.  General 
Washington's  stipulation  in  that  treaty,  therefore, 
was  nothing  more  than  that  our  laws  should  not  levy 
duties  where  we  have  no  right  to  levy  them,  that  is, 
in  foreign  ports,  or  foreign  countries.  These  trans- 
actions took  place  while  the  Creek  deputation  was 
in  New  York,  in  the  month  of  July,  1790,  and  in 
March  preceding  we  had  passed  a  law  delineating 
specially  the  line  between  their  country  and  ours. 
The  only  subject  of  curiosity  is  how  so  nugatory  a 
stipulation  should  have  been  placed  in  a  treaty?  It 
was  from  the  fears  of  Mr.  Gillevray,  who  was  the  head 
of  the  deputation,  who  possessed  from  the  Creeks 
themselves  the  exclusive  right  to  supply  them  with 
goods,  and  to  whom  this  monopoly  was  the  principal 
source  of  income. 


444  Jefferson's  Works 

The  same  writer  quotes  from  a  note  in  Marshall's 
history,  an  opinion  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  given  to  General 
Washington  on  the  same  occasion  of  the  Creek  treaty. 
Two  or  three  little  lines  only  of  that  opinion  are  given 
us,  which  do  indeed  express  the  doctrine  in  broad  and 
general  terms.  Yet  we  know  how  often  a  few  words 
withdrawn  from  their  place  may  seem  to  bear  a  gen- 
eral meaning,  when  their  context  would  show  that 
their  meaning  must  have  been  limited  to  the  subject 
with  respect  to  which  they  were  used.  If  we  could 
see  the  whole  opinion,  it  might  probably  appear  that 
its  foundation  was  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the 
Creek  nation.  We  may  say  too,  on  this  opinion,  as 
on  that  of  a  judge  whose  positions  beyond  the  limits 
of  the  case  before  him  are  considered  as  obiter  say- 
ings, never  to  be  relied  on  as  authority. 

In  July,  '90,  moreover,  the  government  was  but 
just  getting  under  way.  The  duty  law  was  not  passed 
until  the  succeeding  month  of  August.  This  question 
of  the  effect  of  a  treaty  was  then  of  the  first  impres- 
sion; and  none  of  us,  I  suppose,  will  pretend  that  on 
our  first  reading  of  the  Constitution  we  saw  at  once 
all  its  intentions;  all  the  bearings  of  every  word  of  it, 
as  fully  and  as  correctly  as  we  have  since  understood 
them,  after  they  have  become  subjects  of  public  in- 
vestigation and  discussion ;  and  I  well  remember  the 
fact  that,  although  Mr.  Jefferson  had  retired  from 
office  before  Mr.  Jay's  mission,  and  the  question  on 
the  British  treaty,  yet  during  its  discussion  we  were 
well  assured  of  his  entire  concurrence  in  opinion  with 


Correspondence  445 

Mr.  Madison  and  others  who  maintained  the  rights 
of  the  House  of  Representatives,  so  that,  if  on  a 
prima  facie  view  of  the  question,  his  opinion  had  been 
too  general,  on  stricter  investigation  and  more  mature 
consideration,  his  ultimate  opinion  was  with  those 
who  thought  that  the  subjects  which  were  confided 
to  the  House  of  Representatives  in  conjunction  with 
the  President  and  Senate,  were  exceptions  to  the 
general  treaty  power  given  to  the  President  and  Sen- 
ate alone ;  (according  to  the  general  rule  that  an  in- 
strument is  to  be  so  construed  as  to  reconcile  and  give 
meaning  and  effect  to  all  its  parts ;)  that  whenever  a 
treaty  stipulation  interferes  with  a  law  of  the  three 
branches,  the  consent  of  the  third  branch  is  necessary 
to  give  it  effect ;  and  that  there  is  to  this  but  the  sin- 
gle exception  of  the  question  of  war  and  peace.  There 
the  Constitution  expressly  requires  the  concurrence 
of  the  three  branches  to  commit  us  to  the  state  of 
war,  but  permits  two  of  them,  the  President  and 
Senate,  to  change  it  to  that  of  peace,  for  reasons  as 
obvious  as  they  are  wise.  I  think  then  I  may  affirm, 
in  contradiction  to  B.,  that  the  present  attempt  of 
the  Senate  is  not  sanctioned  by  the  opinion  either  of 
General  Washington  or  of  Mr.  Jefferson. 

I  meant  to  confine  myself  to  the  case  of  the  Creek 
treaty,  and  not  to  go  into  the  general  reasoning,  for 
after  the  logical  and  demonstrative  arguments  of 
Mr.  Wilde  of  Georgia,  and  others  on  the  floor  of  Con- 
gress, if  any  man  remains  unconvinced  I  pretend  not 
the  powers  of  convincing  him. 


446  Jefferson's  Works 


TO    GOVERNOR    WILSON    C.    NICHOLAS. 

j  Monticello,  April  2,   1816. 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  March  22c!  has  been 
received.  It  finds  me  more  laboriously  and  imperi- 
ously engaged  than  almost  on  any  occasion  of  my  life. 
It  is  not,  therefore,  in  my  power  to  take  into  imme- 
diate consideration  all  the  subjects  it  proposes ;  they 
cover  a  broad  surface,  and  will  require  some  develop- 
ment.    They  respect, 

I.  Defence. 

II.  Education. 

III.  The  map  of  the  State. 
This  last  will  comprise, 

1.  An  astronomical  survey,  to  wit,  Longitudes  and 
Latitudes. 

2.  A  geometrical  survey  of  the  external  boun- 
daries, the  mountains  and  rivers. 

3.  A  topographical  survey  of  the  counties. 

4.  A  mineralogical  survey. 

Each  of  these  heads  requires  distinct  considera- 
tion. I  will  take  them  up  one  at  a  time,  and  com- 
municate my  ideas  as  leisure  will  permit. 

I.  On  the  subject  of  Defence,  I  will  state  to  you 
what  has  been  heretofore  contemplated  and  pro- 
posed. Some  time  before  I  retired  from  office,  when 
the  clouds  between  England  and  the  United  States 
thickened  so  as  to  threaten  war  at  hand,  and  while 
we  were  fortifying  various  assailable  points  on  our 
sea-board,  the  defence  of  the  Chesapeake  became,  as 


Correspondence  447 

it  ought  to  have  been,  a  subject  of  serious  considera- 
tion, and  the  problem  occurred,  whether  it  could  be 
defended  at  its  mouth  ?  its  effectual  defence  in  detail 
being  obviously  impossible.  My  idea  was  that  we 
should  find  or  prepare  a  station  near  its  mouth  for  a 
very  great  force  of  vessels  of  annoyance  of  such  a 
character  as  to  assail,  when  the  weather  and  position 
of  an  enemy  suited,  and  keep  or  withdraw  them- 
selves into  their  station  when  adverse.  These  means 
of  annoyance  were  to  consist  of  gun-boats,  row-boats, 
floating  batteries,  bomb-ketches,  fire-ships,  rafts, 
turtles,  torpedoes,  rockets,  and  whatever  else  could 
be  desired  to  destroy  a  ship  becalmed,  to  which  could 
now  be  added  Fulton  scows.  I  thought  it  possible 
that  a  station  might  be  made  on  the  middle  grounds, 
(which  are  always  shallow,  and  have  been  known  to 
be  uncovered  by  water,)  by  a  circumvallation  of 
stones  dropped  loosely  on  one  another,  so  as  to  take 
their  own  level,  and  raised  sufficiently  high  to  pro- 
tect the  vessels  within  them  from  the  waves  and  boat 
attacks.  It  is  by  such  a  wall  that  the  harbor  of  Cher- 
bourg has  been  made.  The  middle  grounds  have  a 
firmer  bottom,  and  lie  two  or  three  miles  from  the 
ship  channel  on  either  side,  and  so  near  the  Cape  as 
to  be  at  hand  for  any  enemy  moored  or  becalmed 
within  them.  A  survey  of  them  was  desired,  and 
some  officer  of  the  navy  received  orders  on  the  sub- 
ject, who  being  opposed  to  our  possessing  anything 
below  a  frigate  or  line  of  battle  ship,  either  visited  or 
did  not  visit  them,  and  verbally  expressed  his  opinion 


448  Jefferson's  Works 

of  impracticability.  I  state  these  things  from  mem- 
ory, and  may  err  in  small  circumstances,  but  not  in 
the  general  impression. 

A  second  station  offering  itself  was  the  mouth  of 
Lynhaven  river,  which  having  but  four  or  five  feet 
water,  the  vessels  would  be  to  be  adapted  to  that,  or 
its  entrance  deepened ;  but  there  it  would  be  requisite 
to  have,  first,  a  fort  protecting  the  vessels  within  it, 
and  strong  enough  to  hold  out  until  a  competent  force 
of  militia  could  be  collected  for  its  relief.  And  second, 
a  canal  uniting  the  tide-waters  of  Lynhaven  river 
and  the  eastern  branch,  three  or  four  miles  apart  only 
of  low  level  country.  This  would  afford  to  the  ves- 
sels a  retreat  for  their  own  safety,  and  a  communica- 
tion with  Norfolk  and  Albemarle  Sound,  so  as  to  give 
succor  to  these  places  if  attacked,  or  receive  it  from 
them  for  a  special  enterprise.  It  was  believed  that 
such  a  canal  would  then  have  cost  about  thirty  thou- 
sand dollars. 

This  being  a  case  of  personal  as  well  as  public  in- 
terest, I  thought  a  private  application  not  improper, 
and  indeed  preferable  to  a  more  general  one,  with  an 
executive  needing  no  stimulus  to  do  what  is  right; 
and  therefore,  in  May  and  June,  1813,  I  took  the  lib- 
erty of  writing  to  them  on  this  subject,  the  defence  of 
Chesapeake;  and  to  what  is  before  stated  I  added 
some  observations  on  the  importance  and  pressure 
of  the  case.  A  view  of  the  map  of  the  United  States 
shows  that  the  Chesapeake  receives  either  the  whole 
or  important  waters  of  five  of  the  most  producing 


Correspondence  449 

of  the  Atlantic  States,  to  wit:  North  Carolina,  (for 
the  Dismal  Canal  makes  Albemarle  Sound  a  water  of 
the  Chesapeake,  and  Norfolk  its  port  of  exporta- 
tion,) Virginia,  Maryland,  Pennsylvania  and  New 
York.  We  know  that  the  waters  of  the  Chesapeake, 
from  the  Genesee  to  the  Sawra  towns  and  Albemarle 
Sound,  comprehend  two-fifths  of  the  population  of 
the  Atlantic  States,  and  furnish  probably  more  than 
half  their  exported  produce ;  that  the  loss  of  James 
river  alone,  in  that  year,  was  estimated  at  two  hun- 
dred thousand  barrels  of  flour,  fed  away  to  horses  or 
sold  at  half-price,  which  was  a  levy  of  a  million  of 
dollars  on  a  single  one  of  these  numerous  waters,  and 
that  levy  to  be  repeated  every  year  during  the  war; 
that  this  'mportant  country  can  all  be  shut  up  by 
two  or  three  ships  of  the  enemy,  lying  at  the  mouth 
of  the  bay;  that  an  injury  so  vast  to  us  and  so  cheap 
to  the  enemy,  must  forever  be  resorted  to  by  them, 
and  maintained  constantly  through  every  war ;  that 
this  was  a  hard  trial  of  the  spirit  of  the  Middle  States, 
a  trial  which,  backed  by  impossible  taxes,  might  pro- 
duce a  demand  for  peace  on  any  terms ;  that  when  it 
was  considered  that  the  Union  had  already  expended 
four  millions  of  dollars  for  the  defence  of  the  single 
city  of  New  York,  and  the  waters  of  a  single  river, 
the  Hudson,  (which  we  entirely  approved,  and  now 
we  might  probably  add  four  more  since  expended  on 
the  same  spot,)  we  thought  it  very  moderate  for  so 
great  a  portion  of  the  country,  the  population,  the 
wealth,  and  contributing  industry  and  strength  of 

VOL.   XIV— -29 


45°  Jefferson's  Works 

the  Atlantic  States,  to  ask  a  few  hundred  thousand 
dollars,  to  save  the  harassment  of  their  militia,  con- 
flagrations of  their  towns  and  houses,  devastations 
of  their  farms,  and  annihilation  of  all  the  annual 
fruits  of  their  labor.  The  idea  of  defending  the  bay 
at  its  mouth  was  approved,  but  the  necessary  works 
were  deemed  inexecutable  during  a  war,  and  an 
answer  more  cogent  was  furnished  by  the  fact  that 
our  treasury  and  credit  were  both  exhausted.  Since 
the  war,  I  have  learned  (I  cannot  say  how)  that  the 
Executive  has  taken  up  the  subject  and  sent  on  an 
engineer  to  examine  and  report  the  localities,  and 
that  this  engineer  thought  favorably  of  the  middle 
grounds.  But  my  recollection  is  too  indistinct  but 
to  suggest  inquiry  to  you.  After  having  once  taken 
the  liberty  of  soliciting  the  executive  on  this  subject, 
I  do  not  think  it  would  be  respectful  for  me  to  do  it 
a  second  time,  nor  can  it  be  necessary  with  persons 
who  need  only  suggestions  of  what  is  right,  and  not 
importunities  to  do  it.  If  the  subject  is  brought 
before  them,  they  can  readily  recall  or  recur  to  my 
letters,  if  worth  it.  But  would  it  not  be  advisable 
in  the  first  place,  to  have  surveys  made  of  the  middle 
grounds  and  the  grounds  between  the  tide-waters  of 
Lynhaven  and  the  eastern  branch,  that  your  repre- 
sentations may  be  made  on  known  facts?  These 
would  be  parts  only  of  the  surveys  you  are  authorized 
to  make,  and  might,  for  so  good  a  reason,  be  antici- 
pated and  executed  before  the  general  work  can  be 
done. 


Correspondence  45  * 

Perhaps,  however,  the  view  is  directed  to  a  defence 
by  frigates  or  ships  of  the  line,  stationed  at  York  or 
elsewhere.  Against  this,  in  my  opinion,  both  reason 
and  experience  declaim.  Had  we  half  a  dozen 
seventy-fours  stationed  at  York,  the  enemy  would 
place  a  dozen  at  the  capes.  This  great  force  called 
there  would  enable  them  to  make  large  detachments 
against  Norfolk  when  it  suited  them,  to  harass  and 
devastate  the  bay  coasts  incessantly,  and  would 
oblige  us  to  keep  large  armies  of  militia  at  York  to 
defend  the  ships,  and  at  Norfolk  to  defend  that.  The 
experience  of  New  London  proves  how  certain  and 
destructive  this  blockade  would  be ;  for  New  London 
owed  its  blockade  and  the  depredations  on  its  coasts 
to  the  presence  of  a  frigate  sent  there  for  its  defence ; 
and  did  the  frigate  at  Norfolk  bring  us  defence  or 
assault? 

II.  Education. — The  President  and  Directors  of 
the  literary  fund  are  desired  to  digest  and  report  a 
system  of  public  education,  comprehending  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  university,  additional  colleges  or 
academies ,  and  schools .  The  resolution  does  not  define 
the  portions  of  science  to  be  taught  in  each  of  these 
inst  tutions,  but  the  first  and  last  admit  no  doubt. 
The  university  must  be  intended  for  all  useful 
sciences,  and  the  schools  mean  elementary  ones,  for 
the  instruction  of  the  people,  answering  to  our  present 
English  schools ;  the  middle  term,  colleges  or  acade- 
mies, may  be  more  conjectural.  But  we  must  under- 
stand from  it  some  middle  grade  of  education.     Now, 


45$  Jefferson's  Works 

when  we  advert  that  the  ancient  classical  languages 
are  considered  as  the  foundation  preparatory  for  all 
the  sciences;  that  we  have  always  had  schools  scat- 
tered over  the  country  for  teaching  these  languages, 
which  often  were  the  ultimate  term  of  education; 
that  these  languages  are  entered  on  at  the  age  of  nine 
or  ten  years,  at  which  age  parents  would  be  unwilling 
to  send  their  children  from  every  part  of  the  State  to 
a  central  and  distant  university,  and  when  we  ob- 
serve that  the  resolution  supposes  there  are  to  be  a 
plurality  of  them,  we  may  well  conclude  that  the 
Greek  and  Latin  are  the  objects  of  these  colleges. 
It  is  probable,  also,  that  the  legislature  might  have 
under  their  eye  the  bill  for  the  more  general  diffusion 
of  knowledge,  printed  in  the  revised  code  of  1779, 
which  proposed  these  three  grades  of  institution,  to 
wit:  an  university,  district  colleges,  or  grammar 
schools,  and  county  or  ward  schools.  I  think,  there- 
fore, we  may  say  that  the  object  of  these  colleges  is 
the  classical  languages,  and  that  they  are  intended 
as  the  portico  of  entry  to  the  university.  As  to  their 
numbers,  I  know  no  better  rule  to  be  assumed  than 
to  place  one  within  a  day's  ride  of  every  man's  door, 
in  consideration  of  the  infancy  of  the  pledges  he  has 
at  it.  This  would  require  one  for  every  eight  miles 
square. 

Supposing  this  the  object  of  the  colleges,  the 
report  will  have  to  present  the  plan  of  an  univer- 
sity, analyzing  the  sciences,  selecting  those  which  are 
useful,  grouping  them  into  professorships,  commen- 


Correspondence  453 

surate  each  with  the  time  and  faculties  of  one  man, 
and  prescribing  the  regimen  and  all  other  necessary 
details.  On  this  subject  I  can  offer  nothing  new. 
A  letter  of  mine  to  Peter  Carr,  which  was  published 
during  the  last  session  of  Assembly,  is  a  digest  of  all 
the  information  I  possess  on  the  subject,  from  which 
the  Board  will  judge  whether  they  can  extract  any- 
thing useful;  the  professorship  of  the  classical  lan- 
guages being  of  course  to  be  expunged,  as  more  effec- 
tually supplied  by  the  establishment  of  the  colleges. 

As  the  buildings  to  be  erected  will  also  enter  into 
their  report,  I  would  strongly  recommend  to  their 
consideration,  instead  of  one  immense  building,  to 
have  a  small  one  for  every  professorship,  arranged 
at  proper  distances  around  a  square,  to  admit  exten- 
sion, connected  by  a  piazza,  so  that  they  may  go  dry 
from  one  school  to  another.  This  village  form  is 
preferable  to  a  single  great  building  for  many  reasons, 
particularly  on  account  of  fire,  health,  economy, 
peace  and  quiet.  Such  a  plan  had  been  approved 
in  the  case  of  the  Albemarle  College,  which  was  the 
subject  of  the  letter  above  mentioned;  and  should 
the  idea  be  approved  by  the  Board,  more  may  be  said 
hereafter  on  the  opportunity  these  small  buildings 
will  afford,  of  exhibiting  models  in  architecture  of 
the  purest  forms  of  antiquity,  furnishing  to  the  stu- 
dent examples  of  the  precepts  he  will  be  taught  in 
that  art. 

The  Elementary  or  Ward  schools  are  the  last  branch 
of  this  subject;  on  this,  too,  my  ideas  have  been  long 


454  Jefferson's  Works 

deposited  in  the  bill  for  the  d'ffusion  of  knowledge, 
before  ment  oned,  and  time  and  reflection  have  con- 
tinued to  strengthen  them  as  to  the  general  principle, 
that  of  a  division  of  every  county  into  wards,  with  a 
school  in  each  ward.  The  details  of  the  bill  will  of 
course  be  varied  as  the  difference  of  present  circum- 
stances from  those  of  that  day  will  require. 

My  partiality  for  that  division  is  not  founded  in 
views  of  education  solely,  but  infinitely  more  as  the 
means  of  a  better  administration  of  our  government, 
and  the  eternal  preservation  of  its  republican  princi- 
ples. The  example  of  this  most  admirable  of  all 
human  contrivances  in  government,  is  to  be  seen  in 
our  Eastern  States;  and  its  powerful  effect  in  the 
order  and  economy  of  their  internal  affairs,  and  the 
momentum  it  gives  them  as  a  nation,  is  the  single 
circumstance  which  distinguishes  them  so  remark- 
ably from  every  other  national  association.  In  a 
letter  to  Mr.  Adams  a  few  years  ago,  I  had  occasion 
to  explain  to  him  the  structure  of  our  scheme  of 
education  as  proposed  in  the  bill  for  the  diffusion 
of  knowledge,  and  the  views  of  this  particular  section 
of  it;  and  in  another  lately  to  Mr.  Cabell,  on  the 
occasion  of  the  bill  for  the  Albemarle  College,  I  also 
took  a  view  of  the  political  effects  of  the  proposed 
division  into  wards,  which  being  more  easily  copied 
than  thrown  into  new  form  here,  I  take  the  liberty 
of  enclosing  extracts  from  them.  Should  the  Board 
of  Directors  approve  of  the  plan,  and  make  ward 
divisions  the  substratum  of  their  elementary  schools, 


Correspondence  45  S 

their  report  may  furnish  a  happy  occasion  of  intro- 
ducing them,  leaving  all  their  other  uses  to  be  adapted 
from  time  to  time  hereafter  as  occasions  shall  occur. 

With  these  subjects  I  shall  close  the  present  letter, 
but  that  it  may  be  necessary  to  anticipate  on  the  next 
one  so  far  as  respects  proper  persons  for  carrying  into 
execution  the  astronomical  and  geometrical  surveys, 
I  know  no  one  in  the  State  equal  to  the  first  who 
could  be  engaged  in  it;  but  my  acquaintance  in  the 
State  is  very  limited.  There  is  a  person  near  Wash- 
ington possessing  every  quality  which  could  be  de- 
sired, among  our  first  mathematicians  and  astrono- 
mers, of  good  bodily  activity,  used  to  rough  living, 
of  great  experience  in  field  operations,  and  of  the 
most  perfect  integrity.  I  speak  of  Isaac  Briggs,  who 
was  Surveyor-General  south  of  Ohio,  and  who  was 
employed  to  trace  the  route  from  Washington  to 
New  Orleans,  below  the  mountains,  which  he  did 
with  great  accuracy  by  observations  of  longitude  and 
latitude  only,  on  a  journey  thither.  I  do  not  know 
that  he  would  undertake  the  present  work,  but  I  have 
learnt  that  he  is  at  this  time  disengaged ;  I  know  he 
is  poor,  and  was  always  moderate  in  his  views.  This 
is  the  most  important  of  all  the  surveys,  and  if  done 
by  him,  I  will  answer  for  this  part  of  your  work  stand- 
ing the  test  of  time  and  criticism.  If  you  should 
desire  it,  I  could  write  and  press  him  to  undertake 
it ;  but  it  would  be  necessary  to  say  something  about 
compensation. 

John  Wood,  of  the  Petersburg  Academy,  has  writ- 


456  Jefferson's  Works 

ten  to  me  that  he  would  be  willing  to  undertake  the 
geometrical  survey  of  the  external  boundaries,  and 
internal  divisions.  We  have  certainly  no  abler 
mathematician ;  and  he  informs  me  he  has  had  good 
experience  in  the  works  of  the  field.  He  is  a  great 
walker,  and  is,  therefore,  probably  equal  to  the  bodily 
fatigue,  which  is  a  material  qualification.  But  he  is 
so  much  better  known  where  you  are,  that  I  need 
only  mention  his  readiness  to  undertake,  and  your 
own  personal  knowledge  or  inquiries  will  best  deter- 
mine what  should  be  done.  It  is  the  part  of  the  work 
above  the  tide -waters  which  he  would  undertake; 
that  below,  where  soundings  are  to  be  taken,  requir- 
ing nautical  apparatus  and  practice. 

Whether  he  is  a  mineralogist  or  not,  I  do  not  know. 
It  would  be  a  convenient  and  economical  association 
with  that  of  the  geometrical  survey. 

I  am  obliged  to  postpone  for  some  days  the  con- 
sideration of  the  remaining  subjects  of  your  letter. 
Accept  the  assurance  of  my  great  esteem  and  high 
consideration. 


TO    MR.    JOSEPH    MILLIGAN. 

Monticello,  April  6,   1816. 

Sir, — Your  favor  of  March  6th  did  not  come  to 
hand  until  the  1 5  th.  I  then  expected  I  should  finish 
revising  the  translation  of  Tracy's  book  within  a  week, 
and  could  send  the  whole  together.  I  got  through 
it,  but,  on  further  consideration,  thought  I  ought  to 


Correspondence  457 

read  it  over  again,  lest  any  errors  should  have  been 
left  in  it.  It  was  fortunate  I  did  so,  for  I  found 
several  little  errors.  The  whole  is  now  done  and 
forwarded  by  this  mail,  with  a  title,  and  something 
I  have  written  which  may  serve  for  a  Prospectus,  and 
indeed  for  a  Preface  also,  with  a  little  alteration. 
You  will  see  from  the  face  of  the  work  what  a  horrible 
job  I  have  had  in  the  revisal.  It  is  so  defaced  that  it 
is  absolutely  necessary  you  should  have  a  fair  copy 
taken,  and  by  a  person  of  good  understanding,  for 
that  will  be  necessary  to  decipher  the  erasures,  inter- 
lineations, etc.,  of  the  translation.  The  translator's 
orthography,  too,  will  need  great  correction,  as  you 
will  find  a  multitude  of  words  shamefully  misspelt; 
and  he  seems  to  have  had  no  idea  of  the  use  of  stops : 
he  uses  the  comma  very  commonly  for  a  full  stop; 
and  as  often  the  full  stop,  followed  by  a  capital  letter, 
for  a  comma.  Your  copyist  will,  therefore,  have  to 
stop  it  properly  quite  through  the  work.  Still,  there 
will  be  places  where  it  cannot  be  stopped  correctly 
without  reference  to  the  original;  for  I  observed 
many  instances  where  a  member  of  a  sentence  might 
be  given  either  to  the  preceding  or  following  one, 
grammatically,  which  would  yet  make  the  sense  very 
different,  and  could,  therefore,  be  rectified  only  by 
the  original.  I  have,  therefore,  thought  it  would  be 
better  for  you  to  send  me  the  proof  sheets  as  they 
come  out  of  the  press.  We  have  two  mails  a  week, 
which  leave  this  Wednesdays  and  Saturdays,  and 
you  should  always  receive  it  by  return  of  the  first 


458  Jefferson's  Works 

mail.  Only  observe  that  I  set  out  for  Bedford  in  five 
or  six  days,  and  shall  not  be  back  till  the  first  week 
in  May. 

The  original  construction  of  the  style  of  the  trans- 
lation was  so  bungling,  that  although  I  have  made  it 
render  the  author's  sense  faithfully,  yet  it  was  im- 
possible to  change  the  structure  of  the  sentences  to 
anything  good.  I  have  endeavored  to  apologize  for 
it  in  the  Prospectus ;  as  also  to  prepare  the  reader  for 
the  dry,  and  to  most  of  them,  uninteresting  character 
of  the  preliminary  tracts,  advising  him  to  pass  at 
once  to  the  beginning  of  the  main  work,  where,  also, 
you  will  see  I  have  recommended  the  beginning  the 
principal  series  of  pages.  In  this  I  have  departed 
from  the  order  of  pages  adopted  by  the  author. 

My  name  must  in  nowise  appear  connected  with 
the  work.  I  have  no  objection  to  your  naming  me 
in  conversation,  but  not  in  print,  as  the  person  to 
whom  the  original  was  communicated.  Although 
the  author  puts  his  name  to  the  work,  yet,  if  called 
to  account  for  it  by  his  government,  he  means  to  dis- 
avow it,  which  its  publication  at  such  a  distance  will 
enable  him  to  do.  But  he  would  not  think  himself 
at  liberty  to  do  this  if  avowedly  sanctioned  by  me 
here.  The  best  open  mark  of  approbation  I  can  give 
is  to  subscribe  for  a  dozen  copies;  or  if  you  would 
prefer  it,  you  may  place  on  your  subscription  paper 
a  letter  in  these  words:  "  Sir,  I  subscribe  with  pleas- 
ure for  a  dozen  copies  of  the  invaluable  book  you  are 
about  to  publish  on  Political  Economy.     I  should 


Correspondence  459 

be  happy  to  see  it  in  the  hands  of  every  American 
citizen." 

The  Ainsworth,  Ovid,  Cornelius  Nepos  and  Virgil, 
as  also  of  the  two  books  below  mentioned,1  and  for- 
merly written  for,  I  fear  I  shall  not  get,  the  Ovid  and 
Nepos  I  sent  to  be  bound,  in  time  for  the  pocket  in 
my  Bedford  trip.  Accept  my  best  wishes  and  re- 
spects. 

Title. — "A  Treatise  on  Political  Economy  by  the 
Count  Destutt  Trapy,  member  of  the  Senate  and  In- 
stitute of  France,  and  of  the  American  Philosophical 
Society,  to  which  is  prefixed  a  supplement  to  a  pre- 
ceding work  on  the  Understanding  or  Elements  of 
Ideology,  by  the  same  author,  with  an  analytical 
table,  and  an  introduction  on  the  faculty  of  the  will, 
translated  from  the  unpublished  French  original." 

Prospectus. — Political  Economy  in  modern  times 
assumed  the  form  of  a  regular  science  first  in  the 
hands  of  the  political  sect  in  France,  called  the  Econo- 
mists. They  made  it  a  branch  only  of  a  comprehen- 
sive system  on  the  natural  order  of  societies.  Ques- 
nai  first,  Gournay,  Le  Frosne,  Turgot  and  Dupont 
de  Nemours,  the  enlightened,  philanthropic,  and  ven- 
erable citizen,  now  of  the  United  States,  led  the  way 
in  these  developments,  and  gave  to  our  inquiries  the 
direction  they  have  since  observed.     Many  sound 

(    !  Moore's  Greek  Grammar,  translated  by  Ewen.     Mair's  Tyro's  Dic- 
tionary. 


460  Jefferson's  Works 

and  valuable  principles  established  by  them,  have 
received  the  sanction  of  general  approbation.  Some, 
as  in  the  infancy  of  a  science  might  be  expected,  have 
been  brought  into  question,  and  have  furnished  occa- 
sion for  much  discussion.  Their  opinions  on  pro- 
duction, and  on  the  proper  subjects  of  taxation,  have 
been  particularly  controverted;  and  whatever  may 
be  the  merit  of  their  principles  of  taxation,  it  is  not 
wonderful  they  have  not  prevailed ;  not  on  the  ques- 
tioned score  of  correctness,  but  because  not  accept- 
able to  the  people,  whose  will  must  be  the  supreme 
law.  Taxation  is  in  fact  the  most  difficult  function 
of  government — and  that  against  which  their  citizens 
are  most  apt  to  be  refractory.  The  general  aim  is 
therefore  to  adopt  the  mode  most  consonant  with  the 
circumstances  and  sentiments  of  the  country. 

Adam  Smith,  first  in  England,  published  a  rational 
and  systematic  work  on  Political  Economy,  adopting 
generally  the  ground  of  the  Economists,  but  differing 
on  the  subjects  before  specified.  The  system  being 
novel,  much  argument  and  detail  seemed  then  neces- 
sary to  establish  principles  which  now  are  assented 
to  as  soon  as  proposed.  Hence  his  book,  admitted 
to  be  able,  and  of  the  first  degree  of  merit,  has  yet 
been  considered  as  prolix  and  tedious. 

In  France,  John  Baptist  Say  has  the  merit  of  pro- 
ducing a  very  superior  work  on  the  subject  of  Political 
Economy.  His  arrangement  is  luminous,  ideas  clear, 
style  perspicuous,  and  the  whole  subject  brought 
within  half  the  volume  of  Smith's  work.     Add  to  this 


Correspondence  46 1 

considerable  advances  in  correctness  and  extension 
of  principles. 

The  work  of  Senator  Tracy,  now  announced,  comfes 
forward  with  all  the  lights  of  his  predecessors  in 
the  science,  and  with  the  advantages  of  further 
experience,  more  discussion,  and  greater  maturity 
of  subjects.  It  is  certainly  distinguished  by  impor- 
tant traits ;  a  cogency  of  logic  which  has  never  been 
exceeded  in  any  work,  a  rigorous  enchainment  of 
ideas,  and  constant  recurrence  to  it  to  keep  it  in  the 
reader's  view,  a  fearless  pursuit  of  truth  whitherso- 
ever it  leads,  and  a  diction  so  correct  that  not  a  word 
can  be  changed  but  for  the  worse;  and,  as  happens 
in  other  cases,  that  the  more  a  subject  is  understood, 
the  more  briefly  it  may  be  explained,  he  has  reduced, 
not  indeed  all  the  details,  but  all  the  elements  and 
the  system  of  principles  within  the  compass  of  an  8vo, 
of  about  400  pages.  Indeed  we  might  say  within 
two-thirds  of  that  space,  the  one-third  being  taken 
up  with  some  preliminary  pieces  now  to  be  noticed. 

Mr.  Tracy  is  the  author  of  a  treatise  on  the  Ele- 
ments of  Ideology,  justly  considered  as  a  production 
of  the  first  order  in  the  science  of  our  thinking  faculty, 
or  of  the  understanding.  Considering  the  present 
work  but  as  a  second  section  to  those  Elements  under 
the  titles  of  Analytical  Table,  Supplement,  and  In- 
troduction, he  gives  in  these  preliminary  pieces  a 
supplement  to  the  Elements,  shows  how  the  present 
work  stands  on  that  as  its  basis,  presents  a  summary 
view  of  it,  and,  before  entering  on  the  formation,  dis- 


462  Jefferson's  Works 

tribution,  and  employment  of  property  and  person- 
ality, a  question  not  new  indeed,  yet  one  which  has 
not  hitherto  been  satisfactorily  settled.  These  in- 
vestigations are  very  metaphysical,  profound,  and 
demonstrative,  and  will  give  satisfaction  to  minds  in 
the  habit  of  abstract  speculation.  Readers,  however, 
not  disposed  to  enter  into  them,  after  reading  the 
summary  view,  entitled,  "  on  our  actions,"  will  prob- 
ably pass  on  at  once  to  the  commencement  of  the 
main  subject  of  the  work,  which  is  treated  of  under 
the  following  heads : 

Of  Society. 

Of  Production,  or  the  formation  of  our  riches. 

Of  Value,  or  the  measure  of  utility. 

Of  change  of  form,  or  fabrication. 

Of  change  of  place,  or  commerce. 

Of  Money. 

Of  the  distribution  of  our  riches. 

Of  Population. 

Of  the  employment  of  our  riches,  or  consumption. 

Of  public  revenue,  expenses  and  debts. 

Although  the  work  now  offered  is  but  a  translation, 
it  may  be  considered  in  some  degree  as  the  original, 
that  having  never  been  published  in  the  country  in 
which  it  was  written.  The  author  would  there  have 
been  submitted  to  the  unpleasant  alternative  either 
of  mutilating  his  sentiments,  where  they  were  either 
free  or  doubtful,  or  of  risking  himself  under  the  un- 
settled regimen  of  the  press.  A  manuscript  copy 
communicated  to  a  friend  here  has  enabled  him  to 


Correspondence  463 

give  it  to  a  country  which  is  afraid  to  read  nothing, 
and  which  may  be  trusted  with  anything,  so  long  as 
its  reason  remains  unfettered  by  law. 

In  the  translation,  fidelity  has  been  chiefly  con- 
sulted. A  more  correct  style  would  sometimes  have 
given  a  shade  of  sentiment  which  was  not  the  au- 
thor's, and  which,  in  a  work  standing  in  the  place  of 
the  original,  would  have  been  unjust  towards  him. 
Some  Gallicisms  have,  therefore,  been  admitted, 
where  a  single  word  gives  an  idea  which  would  re- 
quire a  whole  phrase  of  dictionary  English.  Indeed, 
the  horrors  of  Neologism,  which  startle  the  purist, 
have  given  no  alarm  to  the  translator.  Where  brev- 
ity, perspicuity,  and  even  euphony  can  be  promoted 
by  the  introduction  of  a  new  word,  it  is  an  improve- 
ment to  the  language.  It  is  thus  the  English  lan- 
guage has  been  brought  to  what  it  is ;  one-half  of  it 
having  been  innovations,  made  at  different  times, 
from  the  Greek.  Latin,  French,  and  other  languages. 
And  is  it  the  worse  for  these  ?  Had  the  preposterous 
idea  of  fixing  the  language  been  adopted  by  our  Saxon 
ancestors,  of  Pierce  Plowman,  of  Chaucer,  of  Spenser, 
the  progress  of  ideas  must  have  stopped  with  that  of 
the  language.  On  the  contrary,  nothing  is  more  evi- 
dent than  that  as  we  advance  in  the  knowledge  of 
new  things,  and  of  new  combinations  of  old  ones,  we 
must  have  new  words  to  express  them.  Were  Van 
Helmont,  Stane,  Scheele,  to  rise  from  the  dead  at 
this  time,  they  would  scarcely  understand  one  word 
of  their  own  science.     Would  it  have  been  better, 


4^4  Jefferson's  Works 

then,  to  have  abandoned  the  science  of  Chemistry, 
rather  than  admit  innovations  in  its  terms?  What 
a  wonderful  accession  of  copiousness  and  force  has 
the  French  language  attained,  by  the  innovations  of 
the  last  thirty  years!  And  what  do  we  not  owe  to 
Shakespeare  for  the  enrichment  of  the  language,  by 
his  free  and  magical  creation  of  words  ?  In  giving  a 
loose  to  Neologism,  indeed,  uncouth  words  will  some- 
times be  offered ;  but  the  public  will  judge  them,  and 
receive  or  reject,  as  sense  or  sound  shall  suggest,  and 
authors  will  be  approved  or  condemned  according  to 
the  use  they  make  of  this  license,  as  they  now  are 
from  their  use  of  the  present  vocabulary.  The  claim 
of  the  present  translation,  however,  is  limited  to  its 
duties  of  fidelity  and  justice  to  the  sense  of  its  orig- 
inal; adopting  the  author's  own  word  only  where  no 
term  of  our  own  language  would  convey  his  meaning. 

(A  Note  communicated  to  the  Editor.) 

Our  author's  classification  of  taxes  being  taken 
from  those  practised  in  France,  will  scarcely  be  intel- 
ligible to  an  American  reader,  to  whom  the  nature 
as  well  as  names  of  some  of  them  must  be  unknown. 
The  taxes  with  which  we  are  familiar,  class  them- 
selves readily  according  to  the  basis  on  which  they 
rest.  i.  Capital.  2.  Income.  3.  Consumption. 
These  may  be  considered  as  commensurate;  Con- 
sumption being  generally  equal  to  Income,  and  In- 
come the  annual  profit  of  Capital.  A  government 
may  select  either  of  these  bases  for  the  establishment 


Correspondence  46  5 

of  its  system  of  taxation,  and  so  frame  it  as  to  reach 
the  faculties  of  every  member  of  the  society,  and  to 
draw  from  him  his  equal  proportion  of  the  public  con- 
tributions; and,  if  this  be  correctly  obtained,  it  is  the 
perfection  of  the  function  of  taxation.  But  when 
once  a  government  has  assumed  its  basis,  to  select 
and  tax  special  articles  from  either  of  the  other 
classes,  is  double  taxation.  For  example,  if  the 
system  be  established  on  the  basis  of  Income,  and 
his  just  proportion  on  that  scale  has  been  already 
drawn  from  every  one,  to  step  into  the  field  of  Con- 
sumption, and  tax  special  articles  in  that,  as  broad- 
cloth or  homespun,  wine  or  whiskey,  a  coach  or  a 
wagon,  is  doubly  taxing  the  same  article.  For  that 
portion  of  Income  with  which  these  articles  are  pur- 
chased, having  already  paid  its  tax  as  Income,  to  pay 
another  tax  on  the  thing  it  purchased,  is  paying 
twice  for  the  same  thing ;  it  is  an  aggrie vance  on  the 
citizens  who  use  these  articles  in  exoneration  of  those 
who  do  not,  contrary  to  the  most  sacred  of  the  duties 
of  a  government,  to  do  equal  and  impartial  justice 
to  all  its  citizens. 

How  far  it  may  be  the  interest  and  the  duty  of  all 
to  submit  to  this  sacrifice  on  other  grounds,  for  in- 
stance, to  pay  for  a  time  an  impost  on  the  importa- 
tion of  certain  articles,  in  order  to  encourage  their 
manufacture  at  home,  or  an  excise  on  others  injurious 
to  the  morals  or  health  of  the  citizens,  will  depend  on 
a  series  of  considerations  of  another  order,  and  be- 
yond the  proper  limits  of  this  note.     The  reader,  in 

VOL.  XIV — 30 


466  Jefferson's  Works 

deciding  which  basis  of  taxation  is  most  eligible  for 
the  local  circumstances  of  his  country,  will,  of  course, 
avail  himself  of  the  weighty  observations  of  our 
author. 

To  this  a  single  observation  shall  yet  be  added. 
Whether  property  alone,  and  the  whole  of  what  each 
citizen  possesses,  shall  be  subject  to  contribution, 
or  only  its  surplus  after  satisfying  his  first  wants, 
or  whether  the  faculties  of  body  and  mind  shall  con- 
tribute also  from  their  annual  earnings,  is  a  question 
to  be  decided.  But,  when  decided,  and  the  principle 
settled,  it  is  to  be  equally  and  fairly  applied  to  all. 
To  take  from  one,  because  it  is  thought  that  his  own 
industry  and  that  of  his  fathers  has  acquired  too 
much,  in  order  to  spare  to  others,  who,  or  whose 
fathers  have  not  exercised  equal  industry  and  skill, 
is  to  violate  arbitrarily  the  first  principle  of  associa- 
tion, "the  guarantee  to  every  one  of  a  free  exercise 
of  his  industry,  and  the  fruits  acquired  by  it."  If 
the  overgrown  wealth  of  an  individual  be  deemed 
dangerous  to  the  State,  the  best  corrective  is  the  law 
of  equal  inheritance  to  all  in  equal  degree;  and  the 
better,  as  this  enforces  a  law  of  nature,  while  extra- 
taxation  violates  it. 


TO   JOHN    ADAMS. 

Monticello,  April  8,  1816. 
Dear  Sir, — I  have  to  acknowledge  your  two  favors 
of  February  the  16th  and  March  the  2d,  and  to  join 


Correspondence  46  7 

Sincerely  in  the  sentiment  of  Mrs.  Adams,  and  regret 
that  distance  separates  us  so  widely.  An  hour  of 
conversation  would  be  worth  a  volume  of  letters. 
But  we  must  take  things  as  they  come. 

You  ask,  if  I  would  agree  to  live  my  seventy  or 
rather  seventy-three  years  over  again?  To  which  I 
say,  yea.  I  think  with  you,  that  it  is  a  good  world 
on  the  whole ;  that  it  has  been  framed  on  a  principle 
of  benevolence,  and  more  pleasure  than  pain  dealt 
out  to  us.  There  are,  indeed,  (who  might  say  nay) 
gloomy  and  hypochondriac  minds,  inhabitants  of 
diseased  bodies,  disgusted  with  the  present,  and 
despairing  of  the  future;  always  counting  that  the 
worst  will  happen,  because  it  may  happen.  To 
these  I  say,  how  much  pain  have  cost  us  the  evils 
which  have  never  happened!  My  temperament  is 
sanguine.  I  steer  my  bark  with  Hope  in  the  head, 
leaving  Fear  astern.  My  hopes,  indeed,  sometimes 
fail;  but  not  oftener  than  the  forebodings  of  the 
gloomy.  There  are,  I  acknowledge,  even  in  the  hap- 
piest life,  some  terrible  convulsions,  heavy  set-offs 
against  the  opposite  page  of  the  account.  I  have 
often  wondered  for  what  good  end  the  sensations  of 
grief  could  be  intended.  All  our  other  passions, 
within  proper  bounds,  have  an  useful  object.  And 
the  perfection  of  the  moral  character  is,  not  in  a 
stoical  apathy,  so  hypocritically  vaunted,  and  so 
untruly  too,  because  impossible,  but  in  a  just  equi- 
librium of  all  the  passions.  I  wish  the  pathologists 
then  would  tell  us  what  is  the  use  of  grief  in  the  econ- 


468  Jefferson's  Works 

omy,  and  of  what  good  it  is  the  cause,  proximate  or 
remote. 

Did  I  know  Baron. Grimm  while  at  Paris?  Yes, 
most  intimately.  He  was  the  pleasantest  and  most 
conversable  member  of  the  diplomatic  corps  while  I 
was  there;  a  man  of  good  fancy,  acuteness,  irony, 
cunning  and  egoism.  No  heart;  not  much  of  any 
science,  yet  enough  of  every  one  to  speak  its  lan- 
guage; his  forte  was  belles-lettres,  painting  and 
sculpture.  In  these  he  was  the  oracle  of  society, 
and  as  such,  was  the  Empress  Catharine's  private 
correspondent  and  factor,  in  all  things  not  diplo- 
matic. It  was  through  him  I  got  her  permission  for 
poor  Ledyard  to  go  to  Kamschatka,  and  cross  over 
thence  to  the  western  coast  of  America,  in  order  to 
penetrate  across  our  continent  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion to  that  afterwards  adopted  for  Lewis  and  Clarke ; 
which  permission  she  withdrew  after  he  had  got 
within  two  hundred  miles  of  Kamschatka,  had  him 
seized,  brought  back,  and  set  down  in  Poland. 
Although  I  never  heard  Grimm  express  the  opinion 
directly,  yet  I  always  supposed  him  to  be  of  the 
school  of  Diderot,  D'Alembert,  D'Holbach;  the  first 
of  whom  committed  his  system  of  atheism  to  writing 
in  liLe  bon  sens,'"  and  the  last  in  his  "Systeme  de  la 
Nature ."  It  was  a  numerous  school  in  the  Catholic 
countries,  while  the  infidelity  of  the  Protestant  took 
generally  the  form  of  theism.  The  former  always 
insisted  that  it  was  a  mere  question  of  definition 
between  them,  the  hypostasis  of  which,  on  both  sides, 


Correspondence  469 

was  "Nature,"  or  "the  Universe;"  that  both  agreed 
in  the  order  of  the  existing  system,  but  the  one  sup- 
posed it  from  eternity,  the  other  as  having  begun  in 
time.  And  when  the  atheist  descanted  on  the  un- 
ceasing motion  and  circulation  of  matter  through  the 
animal,  vegetable  and  mineral  kingdoms,  never  rest- 
ing, never  annihilated,  always  changing  form,  and 
under  all  forms  gifted  with  the  power  of  reproduc- 
tion; the  theist  pointing  "  to  the  heavens  above,  and 
to  the  earth  beneath,  and  to  the  waters  under  the 
earth,"  asked,  if  these  did  not  proclaim  a  first  cause, 
possessing  intelligence  and  power ;  power  in  the  pro- 
duction, and  intelligence  in  the  design  and  constant 
preservation  of  the  system ;  urged  the  palpable  exist- 
ence of  final  causes;  that  the  eye  was  made  to  see, 
and  the  ear  to  hear,  and  not  that  we  see  because  we 
have  eyes,  and  hear  because  we  have  ears;  an  an- 
swer obvious  to  the  senses,  as  that  of  walking  across 
the  room,  was  to  the  philosopher  demonstrating  the 
non-existence  of  motion.  It  was  in  D'Holbach's 
conventicles  that  Rousseau  imagined  all  the  machi- 
nations against  him  were  contrived;  and  he  left, 
in  his  Confessions,  the  most  biting  anecdotes  of 
Grimm.  These  appeared  after  I  left  France;  but  I 
have  heard  that  poor  Grimm  was  so  much  afflicted 
by  them,  that  he  kept  his  bed  several  weeks.  I  have 
never  seen  the  Memoirs  of  Grimm.  Their  volume 
has  kept  them  out  of  our  market. 

I  have  lately  been  amusing  myself  with  Levi's 
book,  in  answer  to  Dr.  Priestley.     It  is  a  curious  and 


47°  Jefferson's  Works 

tough  work.  His  style  is  inelegant  and  incorrect, 
harsh  and  petulant  to  his  adversary,  and  his  reason- 
ing flimsy  enough.  Some  of  his  doctrines  were  new 
to  me,  particularly  that  of  his  two  resurrections;  the 
first,  a  particular  one  of  all  the  dead,  in  body  as  well 
as  soul,  who  are  to  live  over  again,  the  Jews  in  a  state 
of  perfect  obedience  to  God,  the  other  nations  in  a  state 
of  corporeal  punishment  for  the  sufferings  they  have 
inflicted  on  the  Jews.  And  he  explains  this  resurrec- 
tion of  the  bodies  to  be  only  of  the  original  stamen  of 
Leibnitz,  or  the  human  coins  in  semine  masculine- , 
considering  that  as  a  mathematical  point,  insuscepti- 
ble of  separation  or  division.  The  second  resurrec- 
tion, a  general  one  of  souls  and  bodies,  eternally  to 
enjoy  divine  glory  in  the  presence  of  the  Supreme 
Being.  He  alleges  that  the  Jews  alone  preserve  the 
doctrine  of  the  unity  of  God.  Yet  their  God  would 
be  deemed  a  very  indifferent  man  with  us;  and  it 
was  to  correct  their  anamorphosis  of  the  Deity,  that 
Jesus  preached,  as  well  as  to  establish  the  doctrine 
of  a  future  state.  However,  Levi  insists,  that  that 
was  taught  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  even  by  Moses 
himself  and  the  prophets.  He  agrees  that  an 
anointed  prince  was  prophesied  and  promised ; 
but  denies  that  the  character  and  history  of  Jesus 
had  any  analogy  with  that  of  the  person  promised. 
He  must  be  fearfully  embarrassing  to  the  Hiero- 
phants  of  fabricated  Christianity ;  because  it  is  their 
own  armor  in  which  he  clothes  himself  for  the  attack. 
For  example,  he  takes  passages  of  Scripture  from 


Correspondence  47 l 

their  context,  (which  would  give  them  a  very  dif- 
ferent meaning,)  strings  them  together,  and  makes 
them  point  towards  what  object  he  pleases;  he 
interprets  them  figuratively,  typically,  analogically, 
hyperbolically ;  he  calls  in  the  aid  of  emendation, 
transposition,  ellipse,  metonymy,  and  every  other 
figure  of  rhetoric ;  the  name  of  one  man  is  taken  for 
another,  one  place  for  another,  days  and  weeks  for 
months  and  years;  and  finally,  he  avails  himself  all 
his  advantage  over  his  adversaries  by  his  superior 
knowledge  of  the  Hebrew,  speaking  in  the  very  lan- 
guage of  the  divine  communication,  while  they  can 
only  fumble  on  with  conflicting  and  disputed  transla- 
tions. Such  is  this  war  of  giants.  And  how  can 
such  pigmies  as  you  and  I  decide  between  them? 
For  myself,  I  confess  that  my  head  is  not  formed 
tantas  componere  lites.  And  as  you  began  yours  of 
March  the  2d,  with  a  declaration  that  you  were  about 
to  write  me  the  most  frivolous  letter  I  had  ever  read, 
so  I  will  close  mine  by  saying,  I  have  written  you  a 
full  match  for  it,  and  by  adding  my  affectionate 
respects  to  Mrs.  Adams,  and  the  assurance  of  my  con- 
stant attachment  and  consideration  for  yourself. 


TO    GOVERNOR    WILSON    C.    NICHOLAS. 

Poplar  Forest,  April  19,   1816. 
Dear  Sir, — In  my  letter  of  the  2d  instant,  I  stated, 
according  to  your  request,  what  occurred  to  me  on 
the  subjects  of  Defence  and  Education;   and  I  will 


472  Jefferson's  Works 

now  proceed  to  do  the  same  on  the  remaining  subject 
of  yours  of  March  2  2d,  the  construction  of  a  general 
map  of  the  State.  For  this  the  legislature  directs 
there  shall  be, 

I.  A  topographical  survey  of  each  county. 

II.  A  general  survey  of  the  outlines  of  the  State, 
and  its  leading  features  of  rivers  and  mountains. 

III.  An  astronomical  survey  for  the  correction  and 
collection  of  the  others,  and 

IV.  A  mineralogical  survey. 

I.  Although  the  topographical  survey  of  each 
county  is  referred  to  its  court  in  the  first  instance,  yet 
such  a  control  is  given  to  the  Executive  as  places  it 
effectively  under  his  direction ;  that  this  control  must 
be  freely  and  generally  exercised,  I  have  no  doubt. 
Nobody  expects  that  the  justices  of  the  peace  in 
every  county  are  so  familiar  with  the  astronomical 
and  geometrical  principles  to  be  employed  in  the 
execution  of  this  work,  as  to  be  competent  to  decide 
what  candidate  possesses  them  in  the  highest  degree, 
or  in  any  degree;  and  indeed  I  think  it  would  be 
reasonable,  considering  how  much  the  other  affairs 
of  the  State  must  engross  of  the  time  of  the  Governor 
and  Council,  for  them  to  make  it  a  pre-requisite  for 
every  candidate  to  undergo  an  examination  by  the 
mathematical  professor  of  William  and  Mary  College, 
or  some  other  professional  character,  and  to  ask  for 
a  special  and  confidential  report  of  the  grade  of  quali- 
fication of  each  candidate  examined.  If  one,  com- 
pletely qualified,  can  be  found  for  every  half  dozen 


Correspondence  473 

counties,  it  will  be  as  much,  perhaps,  as  can  be 
expected. 

Their  office  will  be  to  survey  the  Rivers,  Roads, 
and  Mountains. 

i.  A  proper  division  of  the  surveys  of  the  Rivers 
between  them  and  the  general  surveyor,  might  be 
to  ascribe  to  the  latter  so  much  as  is  navigable,  and 
to  the  former  the  parts  not  navigable,  but  yet  suf- 
ficient for  working  machinery,  which  the  law  requires. 
On  these  they  should  note  confluences,  other  natural 
and  remarkable  objects,  towns,  mills  or  other  ma- 
chines, ferries,  bridges,  crossings  of  roads,  passages 
through  mountains,  mines,  quarries,  etc. 

2.  In  surveying  the  Roads,  the  same  objects  should 
be  noted,  and  every  permanent  stream  crossing  them, 
and  these  streams  should  be  laid  down  according  to 
the  best  information  they  can  obtain,  to  their  con- 
fluence with  the  main  stream. 

3.  The  Mountains,  others  than  those  ascribed  to 
the  general  surveyor,  should  be  laid  down  by  their 
names  and  bases,  which  last  will  be  generally  desig- 
nated by  the  circumscription  of  water-courses  and 
roads  on  both  sides,  without  a  special  survey  around 
them.     Their  gaps  are  also  required  to  be  noted. 

4.  On  the  Boundaries,  the  same  objects  should  be 
noted.  Where  a  boundary  falls  within  the  opera- 
tions of  the  general  surveyor,  its  survey  by  them 
should  be  dispensed  with,  and  where  it  is  common 
to  two  counties,  it  might  be  ascribed  wholly  to  one, 
or  divided  between  the  surveyors  respectively.     All 


474  Jefferson's  Works 

these  surveys  should  be  delineated  on  the  same  scale, 
which  the  law  directs,  I  believe,  (for  I  have  omitted 
to  bring  the  copy  of  it  with  me  to  this  place,)  if  it  has 
not  fixed  the  scale.  I  think  about  half  an  inch  to 
the  mile  would  be  a  convenient  one,  because  it  would 
generally  bring  the  map  of  a  county  within  the  com- 
pass of  a  sheet  of  paper.  And  here  I  would  suggest 
what  would  be  a  great  desideratum  for  the  public, 
to  wit,  that  a  single  sheet  map  of  each  county  sepa- 
rately, on  a  scale  of  half  an  inch  to  the  mile,  be  en- 
graved and  struck  off.  There  are  few  housekeepers 
who  would  not  wish  to  possess  a  map  of  their  own 
county,  many  would  purchase  those  of  their  circum- 
jacent counties,  and  many  would  take  one  of  every 
county,  and  form  them  into  an  atlas,  so  that  I  ques- 
tion if  as  many  copies  of  each  particular  map  would 
not  be  sold  as  of  the  general  one.  But  these  should 
not  be  made  until  they  receive  the  astronomical  cor- 
rections, without  which  they  can  never  be  brought 
together  and  joined  into  larger  maps,  at  the  wiU  of 
the  purchaser. 

Their  instrument  should  be  a  Circumferenter,  with 
cross  spirit  levels  on  its  face,  a  graduated  rim,  and  a 
double  index,  the  one  fixed,  the  other  movable,  with 
a  nonius  on  it.  The  needle  should  never  be  depended 
on  for  an  angle. 

II.  The  General  Survey  divides  itself  into  two  dis- 
tinct operations;  the  one  on  the  tide- waters,  the 
other  above  them. 

On  the  tide-waters  the  State  will  have  little  to  do. 


Correspondence  4  7  5 

Some  time  before  the  war,  Congress  authorized  the 
Executive  to  have  an  accurate  survey  made  of  the 
whole  sea-coast  of  the  United  States,  comprehending, 
as  well  as  I  remember,  the  principal  bays  and  harbors. 
A  Mr.  Hassler,  a  mathematician  of  the  first  order 
from  Geneva,  was  engaged  in  the  execution,  and  was 
sent  to  England  to  procure  proper  instruments.  He 
has  lately  returned  with  such  a  set  as  never  before 
crossed  the  Atlantic,  and  is  scarcely  possessed  by  any 
nation  on  the  continent  of  Europe.  We  shall  be  fur- 
nished, then,  by  the  General  Government,  with  a 
better  survey  than  we  can  make,  of  our  sea-coast, 
Chesapeake  Bay,  probably  the  Potomac,  to  the  Navy 
Yard  at  Washington,  and  possibly  of  James  river  to 
Norfolk,  and  York  river  to  Yorktown.  I  am  not, 
however,  able  to  say  that  these,  or  what  other,  are 
the  precise  limits  of  their  intentions.  The  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  would  probably  inform  us.  Above 
these  limits,  whatever  they  are,  the  surveys  and 
soundings  will  belong  to  the  present  undertaking  of 
the  State;  and  if  Mr.  Hassler  has  time,  before  he 
commences  his  general  work,  to  execute  this  for  us, 
with  the  use  of  the  instruments  of  the  United  States, 
it  is  impossible  we  can  put  it  into  any  train  of  execu- 
tion equally  good;  and  any  compensation  he  may 
require,  will  be  less  than  it  would  cost  to  purchase 
instruments  of  our  own,  and  have  the  work  imper- 
fectly done  by  a  less  able  hand.  If  we  are  to  do  it 
ourselves,  I  acknowledge  myself  too  little  familiar 
with  the  methods  of  surveying  a  coast  and  taking 


476  Jefferson's  Works 

soundings,  to  offer  anything  on  the  subject  approved 
by  practice.  I  will  pass  on,  therefore,  to  the  general 
survey  of  the  Rivers  above  the  tide- waters,  the  Moun- 
tains, and  the  external  Boundaries. 

I.  Rivers. — I  have  already  proposed  that  the  gen- 
eral survey  shall  comprehend  these  from  the  tide- 
waters as  far  as  they  are  navigable  only,  and  here  we 
shall  find  one-half  of  the  work  already  done,  and  as 
ably  as  we  may  expect  to  do  it.  In  the  great  contro- 
versy between  the  Lords  Baltimore  and  Fairfax, 
between  whose  territories  the  Potomac,  from  its 
mouth  to  its  source,  was  the  chartered  boundary, 
the  question  was  which  branch,  from  Harper's  ferry 
upwards,  was  to  be  considered  as  the  Potomac? 
Two  able  mathematicians,  therefore,  were  brought 
over  from  England  at  the  expense  of  the  parties,  and 
under  the  sanction  of  the  sentence  pronounced  be- 
tween them,  to  survey  the  two  branches,  and  ascer- 
tain which  was  to  be  considered  as  the  main  stream. 
Lord  Fairfax  took  advantage  of  their  being  here  to 
get  a  correct  survey  by  them  of  his  whole  territory, 
which  was  bounded  by  the  Potomac,  tne  Rappaha- 
noc,  as  was  believed,  in  the  most  accurate  manner. 
Their  survey  was  doubtless  filed  and  recorded  in  Lord 
Fairfax's  office,  and  I  presume  it  still  exists  among 
his  land  papers.  He  furnished  a  copy  of  that  survey 
to  Colonel  Fry  and  my  father,  who  entered  it,  on  a 
reduced  scale,  into  their  map,  as  far  as  latitudes  and 
admeasurements  accurately  horizontal  could  pro- 
duce exactness.     I  expect  this  survey  is  to  be  reli< 


Correspondence  47  7 

on.  But  it  is  lawful  to  doubt  whether  its  longitudes 
may  not  need  verification;  because  at  that  day  the 
corrections  had  not  been  made  in  the  lunar  tables, 
which  have  since  introduced  the  method  of  ascertain- 
ing the  longitude  by  the  lunar  distances ;  and  that  by 
Jupiter's  satellites  was  impracticable  in  ambulatory 
survey.  The  most  we  can  count  on  is,  that  they  may 
have  employed  some  sufficient  means  to  ascertain 
the  longitude  of  the  first  source  of  the  Potomac,  the 
meridian  of  which  was  to  be  Lord  Baltimore's  bound- 
ary. The  longitudes,  therefore,  should  be  verified 
and  corrected,  if  necessary,  and  this  will  belong  to 
the  Astronomical  survey. 

The  other  rivers  only,  then,  from  their  tide- waters 
up  as  far  as  navigable,  remain  for  this  operator,  and 
on  them  the  same  objects  should  be  noted  as  pro- 
posed in  the  county  surveys ;  and,  in  addition,  their 
breadth  at  remarkable  parts,  such  as  the  confluence 
of  other  streams,  falls,  and  ferries,  the  soundings  of 
their  main  channels,  bars,  rapids,  and  principal 
sluices  through  their  falls,  their  current  at  various 
places,  and,  if  it  can  be  done  without  more  cost  than 
advantage,  their  fall  between  certain  stations. 

II.  Mountains. — I  suppose  the  law  contemplates, 
in  the  general  survey,  only  the  principal  continued 
ridges,  and  such  insulated  mountains  as  being  cor- 
rectly ascertained  in  their  position,  and  visible  from 
many  and  distant  places,  may,  by  their  bearings,  be 
useful  correctives  for  all  the  surveys,  and  especially 
for  those  of  the  counties.     Of  the  continued  ridges, 


47$  Jefferson's  Works 

the  Alleghany,  North  Mountain,  and  Blue  Ridge,  are 
principal;  ridges  of  partial  lengths  may  be  left  to 
designation  in  the  county  surveys.  Of  insulated 
mountains,  there  are  the  Peaks  of  Otter,  in  Bedford, 
which  I  believe  may  be  seen  from  about  twenty  coun- 
ties; Willis'  Mountains,  in  Buckingham,  which  from 
their  detached  situation,  and  so  far  below  all  other 
mountains,  may  be  seen  over  a  great  space  of  coun- 
try; Peter's  Mountain,  in  Albemarle,  which,  from 
its  eminence  above  all  others  of  the  southwest  ridge, 
may  be  seen  to  a  great  distance,  probably  to  Willis' 
Mountain,  and  with  that  and  the  Peaks  of  Otter, 
furnishes  a  very  extensive  triangle;  and  doubtless 
there  are  many  unknown  to  me,  which,  being  truly 
located,  offer  valuable  indications  and  correctives 
for  the  county  surveys.  For  example,  the  sharp 
peak  of  Otter  being  precisely  fixed  in  position  by  its 
longitude  and  latitude,  a  simple  observation  of  lati- 
tude taken  at  any  place  from  which  that  peak  is 
visible,  and  an  observation  of  the  angle  it  makes  with 
the  meridian  of  the  place,  furnish  a  right-angled 
spherical  triangle,  of  which  the  portion  of  meridian 
intercepted  between  the  latitudes  of  the  place  and 
peak,  will  be  on  one  side.  With  this  and  the  given 
angles,  the  other  side,  constituting  the  difference  of 
longitude,  may  be  calculated,  and  thus  by  a  correct 
position  of  these  commanding  points,  that  of  every 
place  from  which  any  one  of  them  is  visible,  may,  by 
observations  of  latitude  and  bearing,  be  ascertained 
in  longitude  also.     If  two  such  objects  be  visible  from 


Correspondence  479 

the  same  place,  it  will  afford,  by  another  triangle,  a 
double  correction. 

The  gaps  in  the  continued  ridges,  ascribed  to  the 
general  surveyor,  are  required  by  the  law  to  be  noted ; 
and  so  also  are  their  heights.  This  must  certainly 
be  understood  with  some  limitation,  as  the  height  of 
every  knob  in  these  ridges  could  never  be  desired. 
Probably  the  law  contemplated  only  the  eminent 
mountains  in  each  ridge,  such  as  would  be  conspicu- 
ous objects  of  observation  to  the  country  at  great 
distances,  and  would  offer  the  same  advantages  as 
the  insulated  mountains.  Such  eminences  in  the 
Blue  Ridge  will  be  more  extensively  useful  than 
those  of  the  more  western  ridges.  The  height  of 
gaps  also,  over  which  roads  pass,  were  probably  in 
view. 

But  how  are  these  heights  to  be  taken,  and  from 
what  base  ?  I  suppose  from  the  plain  on  which  they 
stand.  But  it  is  difficult  to  ascertain  the  precise 
horizontal  line  of  that  plain,  or  to  say  where  the 
ascent  above  the  general  face  of  the  country  begins. 
Where  there  is  a  river  or  other  considerable  stream, 
or  extensive  meadow  plains  near  the  foot  of  a  moun- 
tain, which  is  much  the  case  in  the  valleys  dividing 
the  western  ridges,  I  suppose  that  may  be  fairly  con- 
sidered in  the  level  of  its  base,  in  the  intendment  of 
the  law.  Where  there  is  no  such  term  of  commence- 
ment, the  surveyor  must  judge,  as  well  as  he  can 
from  his  view,  what  point  is  in  the  general  level  of  the 
adjacent   country.     How   are   these  heights   to  be 


480  Jefferson's  Works 

taken,  and  with  what  instrument?  Where  a  good 
base  can  be  found,  the  geometrical  admeasurement 
is  the  most  satisfactory.  For  this,  a  theodolite  must 
be  provided  of  the  most  perfect  construction,  by 
Ramsden-Troughton  if  possible;  and  for  horizontal 
angles  it  will  be  the  better  of  two  telescopes.  But 
such  bases  are  rarely  to  be  found.  When  none  such, 
the  height  may  still  be  measured  geometrically,  by 
ascending  or  descending  the  mountain  with  the  the- 
odolite, measuring  its  face  from  station  to  station, 
noting  its  inclination  between  these  stations,  and  the 
hypothenusal  difference  of  that  inclination,  as  indi- 
cated on  the  vertical  arc  of  the  theodolite.  The  sum 
of  the  perpendiculars  corresponding  with  the  hypoth- 
enusal measures,  is  the  height  of  the  mountain.  But 
a  barometrical  admeasurement  is  preferable  to  this; 
since  the  late  improvements  in  the  theory,  they  are 
to  be  depended  on  nearly  as  much  as  the  geometrical, 
and  are  much  more  convenient  and  expeditious.  The 
barometer  should  have  a  sliding  nonius,  and  a  ther- 
mometer annexed,  with  a  screw  at  the  bottom  to 
force  up  the  column  of  mercury  solidly.  Without 
this  precaution  they  cannot  be  transported  at  all; 
and  even  with  it,  they  are  in  danger  from  every  severe 
jolt.  They  go  more  safely  on  a  baggage-horse  than 
in  a  carriage.  The  heights  should  be  measured  on 
both  sides,  to  show  the  rise  of  the  country  at  every 
ridge. 

Observations  of  longitude  and  latitude  should  be 
taken  by  the  surveyor  at  all  confluences  of  consider- 


Correspondence  48 1 

able  streams,  and  on  all  mountains  of  which  he  meas- 
ures the  heights,  whether  insulated  or  in  ridges;  for 
this  purpose,  he  should  be  furnished  with  a  good 
Hadley's  circle  of  Borda's  construction,  with  three 
limbs  of  nonius  indexes ;  if  not  to  be  had,  a  sextant 
of  brass,  and  of  the  best  construction,  may  do,  and 
a  chronometer;  to  these  is  to  be  added  a  Gunter's 
chain,  with  some  appendix  for  plumbing  the  chain. 

III.  The  External  Boundaries  of  the  State,  to  wit: 
Northern,  Eastern,  Southern  and  Western.  The 
Northern  boundary  consists  of,  1st,  the  Potomac; 
2d,  a  meridian  from  its  source  to  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line;  3d,  a  continuation  of  that  line  to  the  meridian 
of  the  northwestern  corner  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
4th,  of  that  meridian  to  its  intersection  with  the 
Ohio.  1st.  The  Potomac  is  supposed,  as  before  men- 
tioned, to  be  surveyed  to  our  hand.  2d.  The  merid- 
ian, from  its  source  to  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  was,  I 
believe,  surveyed  by  them  when  they  run  the  divid- 
ing line  between  Lord  Baltimore  and  Penn.  I  pre- 
sume it  can  be  had  from  either  Annapolis  or  Phila- 
delphia, and  I  think  there  is  a  copy  of  it,  which  I  got 
from  Dr.  Smith,  in  an  atlas  of  the  library  of  Congress. 
Nothing  better  can  be  done  by  us.  3d.  The  con- 
tinuation of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  and  the  meridian 
from  its  termination  to  the  Ohio,  was  done  by  Mr. 
Rittenhouse  and  others,  and  copies  of  their  work  are 
doubtless  in  our  offices  as  well  as  in  those  of  Penn- 
sylvania. What  has  been  done  by  Rittenhouse  can 
be  better  done  by  no  one. 

VOL.  XIV — 31 


4S2  Jefferson's  Works 

The  Eastern  boundary  being  the  sea-coast,  we  have 
before  presumed  will  be  surveyed  by  the  general  gov- 
ernment. 

The  Southern  boundary.  This  has  been  extended 
and  marked  in  different  parts  in  the  chartered  lati- 
tude of  3  6°  3 i'  by  three  different  sets  of  Commission- 
ers. The  eastern  part  by  Dr.  Byrd  and  other  com- 
missioners from  Virginia  and  North  Carolina:  the 
middle  by  Fry  and  Jefferson  from  Virginia,  and 
Churton  and  others  from  North  Carolina;  and  the 
western  by  Dr.  Walker  and  Daniel  Smith,  now  of  Ten- 
nessee. Whether  Byrd's  survey  now  exists,  I  do  not 
know.  His  journal  is  still  in  possession  of  some  one 
of  the  Westover  family,  and  it  would  be  well  to  seek 
for  it,  in  order  to  judge  of  that  portion  of  the  line. 
Fry  and  Jefferson's  journal  was  burnt  in  the  Shad- 
well  house  about  fifty  years  ago,  with  all  the  mate- 
rials of  their  map.  Walker  and  Smith's  survey  is 
probably  in  our  offices;  there  is  a  copy  of  it  in  the 
atlas  before  mentioned;  but  that  survey  was  made 
on  the  spur  of  a  particular  occasion,  and  with  a  view 
to  a  particular  object  only.  During  the  Revolution- 
ary war,  we  were  informed  that  a  treaty  of  peace  was 
on  the  carpet  in  Europe,  on  the  principle  of  uti  possi- 
detis; and  we  despatched  those  gentlemen  immedi- 
ately to  ascertain  the  intersection  of  our  Southern 
boundary  with  the  Mississippi,  and  ordered  Colonel 
Clarke  to  erect  a  hasty  fort  on  the  first  bluff  above 
the  line,  which  was  done  as  an  act  of  possession.  The 
intermediate  line,  between  that  and  the  termination 


Correspondence  483 

of  Fry  and  Jefferson's  line,  was  pro  visionary  only, 
and  not  made  with  any  particular  care.  That,  then, 
requires  to  be  re-surveyed  as  far  as  the  Cumberland 
mountain.  But  the  eastern  and  middle  surveys  will 
only  need,  I  suppose,  to  have  their  longitudes  recti- 
fied by  the  astronomical  surveyor. 

The  Western  boundary,  consisting  of  the  Ohio,  Big 
Sandy  and  Cumberland  mountain,  having  been  estab- 
lished while  I  was  out  of  the  country,  I  have  never 
had  occasion  to  inquire  whether  they  were  actually 
surveyed,  and  with  what  degree  of  accuracy.  But 
this  fact  being  well  known  to  yourself  particularly, 
and  to  others  who  have  been  constantly  present  in 
the  State,  you  will  be  more  competent  to  decide  what 
is  to  be  done  in  that  quarter.  I  presume,  indeed,  that 
this  boundary  will  constitute  the  principal  and  most 
difficult  part  of  the  operations  of  the  General  Sur- 
veyor. 

The  injunctions  of  the  act  to  note  the  magnetic 
variations  merit  diligent  attention.  The  law  of  those 
variations  is  not  yet  sufficiently  known  to  satisfy  us 
that  sensible  changes  do  not  sometimes  take  place 
at  small  intervals  of  time  and  place.  To  render  these 
observations  of  the  variations  easy,  and  to  encourage 
their  frequency,  a  copy  of  a  table  of  amplitudes  should 
be  furnished  to  every  surveyor,  by  which,  wherever 
he  has  a  good  eastern  horizon,  he  may,  in  a  few 
seconds,  at  sunrise,  ascertain  the  variation.  This 
table  is  to  be  found  in  the  book  called  the  "  Mariner's 
Compass  Rectified;"  but  more  exactly  in  the  "  Con- 


4^4  Jefferson's  Works 

naissance  des  Terns"  for  1778  and  1788,  all  of  whiun 
are  in  the  library  of  Congress.  It  may  perhaps  be 
found  in  other  books  more  easily  procured,  and  will 
need  to  be  extracted  only  from  36^°  to  400  degrees 
of  latitude. 

III.  The  Astronomical  Survey.  This  is  the  most 
important  of  all  the  operations ;  it  is  from  this  alone 
we  are  to  expect  real  truth.  Measures  and  rhumbs 
taken  on  the  spherical  surface  of  the  earth,  cannot  be 
represented  on  a  plane  surface  of  paper  without  astro- 
nomical corrections;  and,  paradoxical  as  it  may 
seem,  it  is  nevertheless  true,  that  we  cannot  know 
the  relative  position  of  two  places  on  the  earth,  but 
by  interrogating  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars.  The 
observer  must,  therefore,  correctly  fix,  in  longitude 
and  latitude,  all  remarkable  points  from  distance  to 
distance.  Those  to  be  selected  of  preference  are  the 
confluences,  rapids,  falls  and  ferries  of  water-courses, 
summits  of  mountains,  towns,  court-houses,  and 
angles  of  counties,  and  where  these  points  are  more 
than  a  third  or  half  a  degree  distant,  they  should  be 
supplied  by  observations  of  other  points,  such  as 
mills,  bridges,  passes  through  mountains,  etc.,  for 
in  our  latitudes,  half  a  degree  makes  a  difference  of 
three-eighths  of  a  mile  in  the  length  of  the  degree  of 
longitude.  These  points  first  laid  down,  the  inter- 
mediate delineations  to  be  transferred  from  the  par- 
ticular surveys  to  the  general  map,  are  adapted  to 
them  by  contractions  or  dilatations.  The  observer 
will  need  a  best  Hadley's  circle  of  Broda's  construe- 


Correspondence  485 

tion,  by  Troughton,  if  possible,  (for  they  are  since 
Ramsden's  time,)  and  a  best  chronometer. 

Very  possibly  an  equatorial  may  be  needed.  This 
instrument  set  to  the  observed  latitude,  gives  the 
meridian  of  the  place.  In  the  lunar  observations 
at  sea  this  element  cannot  be  had,  and  in  Europe 
by  land,  these  observations  are  not  resorted  to  for 
longitudes,  because  at  their  numerous  fixed  observa- 
tions they  are  prepared  for  the  better  method  of 
Jupiter's  satellites.  But  here,  where  our  geography 
is  still  to  be  fixed  by  a  portable  apparatus  only,  we 
are  obliged  to  resort,  as  at  sea,  to  the  lunar  observa- 
tions, with  the  advantage,  however,  of  a  fixed  merid- 
ian. And  although  the  use  of  a  meridian  in  these 
observations  is  a  novelty  yet,  placed  under  new 
circumstances,  we  must  countervail  their  advantages 
by  whatever  new  resources  they  offer.  It  is  obvious 
that  the  observed  distance  of  the  moon  from  the 
meridian  of  the  place,  and  her  calculated  distance 
from  that  of  Greenwich  at  the  same  instant,  give  the 
difference  of  meridians,  without  dependence  on  any 
measure  of  time ;  by  addition  of  the  observations,  if 
the  moon  be  between  the  two  meridians,  by  sub- 
traction if  east  or  west  of  both ;  the  association,  there- 
fore, of  this  instrument  with  the  circular  one,  by 
introducing  another  element,  another  process  and 
another  instrument,  furnishes  a  test  of  the  observa- 
tions with  the  Hadley,  adds  to  their  certainty,  and, 
by  its  corroborations,  dispenses  with  that  multiplica- 
tion of  observations  which  is  necessary  with  the  ffecU 


486  Jefferson's  Works 

ley  when  used  alone.  This  idea,  however,  is  sug- 
gested by  theory  only;  and  it  must  be  left  to  the 
judgment  of  the  observer  who  will  be  employed, 
whether  it  would  be  practicable  and  useful.  To  him, 
when  known,  I  shall  be  glad  to  give  further  explana- 
tions. The  cost  of  the  equatorial  is  about  the  same 
with  that  of  the  circle,  when  of  equal  workmanship. 

Both  the  surveyor  and  astronomer  should  journalize 
their  proceedings  daily,  and  send  copies  of  their  jour- 
nals monthly  to  the  Executive,  as  well  to  prevent  loss 
by  accident,  as  to  make  known  their  progress. 

IV.  Mineralogical  Survey. — I  have  never  known 
in  the  United  States  but  one  eminent  mineralogist, 
who  could  have  been  engaged  on  hire.  This  was  a 
Mr.  Goudon  from  France,  who  came  over  to  Phila- 
delphia six  or  seven  years  ago.  Being  zealously 
devoted  to  the  science,  he  proposed  to  explore  the 
new  field  which  this  country  offered;  but  being 
scanty  in  means,  as  I  understood,  he  meant  to  give 
lectures  in  the  winter  which  might  enable  him  to  pass 
the  summer  in  mineralogical  rambles.  It  is  long 
since  I  have  heard  his  name  mentioned,  and  there- 
fore do  not  know  whether  he  is  still  at  Philadelphia, 
or  even  among  the  living.  The  literary  gentlemen 
of  that  place  can  give  the  information,  or  perhaps 
point  out  some  other  equal  to  the  undertaking. 

I  believe  I  have  now,  Sir,  gone  over  all  the  subjects 
of  your  letter, — which  I  have  done  with  less  reserve 
to  multiply  the  chances  of  offering  here  and  there 
something  which  might  be  useful.    Its  greatest  merit, 


Correspondence  487 

however,  will  be  that  of  evidencing  my  respect  for 
your  commands,  and  of  adding  to  the  proofs  of  my 
great  consideration  and  esteem. 


TO    MONSIEUR   DUPONT    DE    NEMOURS. 

Poplar  Forest,  April  24,  18 16. 

I  received,  my  dear  friend,  your  letter  covering 
the  Constitution  for  your  Equinoctial  republics,  just 
as  I  was  setting  out  for  this  place.  I  brought  it  with 
me,  and  have  read  it  with  great  satisfaction.  I  sup- 
pose it  well  formed  for  those  for  whom  it  was  in- 
tended, and  the  excellence  of  every  government  is 
its  adaptation  to  the  state  of  those  to  be  governed  by 
it.  For  us  it  would  not  do.  Distinguishing  between 
the  structure  of  the  government  and  the  moral  prin- 
ciples on  which  you  prescribe  its  administration,  with 
the  latter  we  concur  cordially,  with  the  former  we 
should  not.  We  of  the  United  States,  you  know,  are 
constitutionally  and  conscientiously  democrats.  We 
consider  society  as  one  of  the  natural  wants  with 
which  man  has  been  created;  that  he  has  been  en- 
dowed with  faculties  and  qualities  to  effect  its  satis- 
faction by  concurrence  of  others  having  the  same 
want;  that  when,  by  the  exercise  of  these  faculties, 
he  has  procured  a  state  of  society,  it  is  one  of  his 
acquisitions  which  he  has  a  right  to  regulate  and  con- 
trol, jointly  indeed  with  all  those  who  have  concurred 
in  the  procurement,  whom  he  cannot  exclude  from 
its  use  or  direction  more  than  they  him.     We  think 


488  Jefferson's  Works 

experience  has  proved  it  safer,  for  the  mass  of  indi- 
viduals composing  the  society,  to  reserve  to  them- 
selves personally  the  exercise  of  all  rightful  powers 
to  which  they  are  competent,  and  to  delegate  those 
to  which  they  are  not  competent  to  deputies  named, 
and  removable  for  unfaithful  conduct,  by  themselves 
immediately.  Hence,  with  us,  the  people  (by  which 
is  meant  the  mass  of  individuals  composing  the 
society)  being  competent  to  judge  of  the  facts  occur- 
ring in  ordinary  life,  they  have  retained  the  functions 
of  judges  of  facts,  under  the  name  of  jurors;  but 
being  unqualified  for  the  management  of  affairs 
requiring  intelligence  above  the  common  level,  yet 
competent  judges  of  human  character,  they  chose, 
for  their  management,  representatives,  some  by  them- 
selves immediately,  others  by  electors  chosen  by 
themselves.  Thus  our  President  is  chosen  by  our- 
selves, directly  in  practice,  for  we  vote  for  A  as  elector 
only  on  the  condition  he  will  vote  for  B,  our  repre- 
sentatives by  ourselves  immediately,  our  Senate  and 
judges  of  law  through  electors  chosen  by  ourselves. 
And  we  believe  that  this  proximate  choice  and  power 
of  removal  is  the  best  security  which  experience  has 
sanctioned  for  ensuring  an  honest  conduct  in  the 
functionaries  of  society.  Your  three  or  four  alembi- 
cations  have  indeed  a  seducing  appearance.  We 
should  conceive,  prima  facie,  that  the  last  extract 
would  be  the  pure  alcohol  of  the  substance,  three  or 
four  times  rectified.  But  in  proportion  as  they  are 
more  and  more  sublimated,  they  are  also  farther  and 


Correspondence  489 

farther  removed  from  the  control  of  the  society;  and 
the  human  character,  we  believe,  requires  in  general 
constant  and  immediate  control,  to  prevent  its  being 
biased  from  right  by  the  seductions  of  self-love.  Your 
process  produces,  therefore,  a  structure  of  govern- 
ment from  which  the  fundamental  principle  of  ours 
is  excluded.  You  first  set  down  as  zeros  all  indi- 
viduals not  having  lands,  which  are  the  greater  num- 
ber in  every  society  of  long  standing.  Those  holding 
lands  are  permitted  to  manage  in  person  the  small 
affairs  of  their  commune  or  corporation,  and  to  elect 
a  deputy  for  the  canton ;  in  which  election,  too,  every 
one's  vote  is  to  be  an  unit,  a  plurality,  or  a  fraction, 
in  proportion  to  his  landed  possessions.  The  assem- 
blies of  cantons,  then,  elect  for  the  districts;  those 
of  districts  for  circles;  and  those  of  circles  for  the 
national  assemblies.  Some  of  these  highest  councils, 
too,  are  in  a  considerable  degree  self -elected,  the 
regency  partially,  the  judiciary  entirely,  and  some 
are  for  life.  Whenever,  therefore,  an  esprit  de  corps, 
or  of  party,  gets  possession  of  them,  which  experience 
shows  to  be  inevitable,  there  are  no  means  of  break- 
ing it  up,  for  they  will  never  elect  but  those  of  their 
own  spirit.  Juries  are  allowed  in  criminal  cases  only. 
I  acknowledge  myself  strong  in  affection  to  our  own 
form,  yet  both  of  us  act  and  think  from  the  same 
motive,  we  both  consider  the  people  as  our  children, 
and  love  them  with  parental  affection.  But  you 
love  them  as  infants  whom  you  are  afraid  to  trust 
without  nurses ;  and  I  as  adults  whom  I  freely  leave 


49°  Jefferson's  Works 

to  self-government.  And  you  are  right  in  the 
case  referred  to  you ;  my  criticism  being  built  on  a 
state  of  society  not  under  your  contemplation.  It 
is,  in  fact,  like  a  critic  on  Homer  by  the  laws  of  the 
Drama. 

But  when  we  come  to  the  moral  principles  on 
which  the  government  is  to  be  administered,  we 
come  to  what  is  proper  for  all  conditions  of  society. 
I  meet  you  there  in  all  the  benevolence  and  rectitude 
of  your  native  character;  and  I  love  myself  always 
most  where  I  concur  most  with  you.  Liberty,  truth, 
probity,  honor,  are  declared  to  be  the  four  cardinal 
principles  of  your  society.  I  believe  with  you  that 
morality,  compassion,  generosity,  are  innate  elements 
of  the  human  constitution ;  that  there  exists  a  right 
independent  of  force;  that  a  right  to  property  is 
founded  in  our  natural  wants,  in  the  means  with 
which  we  are  endowed  to  satisfy  these  wants,  and 
the  right  to  what  we  acquire  by  those  means  without 
violating  the  similar  rights  of  other  sensible  beings; 
that  no  one  has  a  right  to  obstruct  another,  exercising 
his  faculties  innocently  for  the  relief  of  sensibilities 
made  a  part  of  his  nature ;  that  justice  is  the  funda- 
mental law  of  society ;  that  the  majority,  oppressing 
an  individual,  is  guilty  of  a  crime,  abuses  its  strength, 
and  by  acting  on  the  law  of  the  strongest,  breaks  up 
the  foundations  of  society;  that  action  by  the  citi- 
zens in  person,  in  affairs  within  their  reach  and  com- 
petence, and  in  all  others  by  representatives,  chosen 
immediately,  and  removable  by  themselves,  consti- 


Correspondence  49 1 

tutes  the  essence  of  a  republic ;  that  all  governments 
are  more  or  less  republican  in  proportion  as  this  prin- 
ciple enters  more  or  less  into  their  composition ;  and 
that  a  government  by  representation  is  capable  of 
extension  over  a  greater  surface  of  country  than  one 
of  any  other  form.  These,  my  friend,  are  the  essen- 
tials in  which  you  and  I  agree;  however,  in  our  zeal 
for  their  maintenance,  we  may  be  perplexed  and 
divaricate,  as  to  the  structure  of  society  most  likely 
to  secure  them. 

In  the  Constitution  of  Spain,  as  proposed  by  the 
late  Cortes,  there  was  a  principle  entirely  new  to  me, 
and  not  noticed  in  yours,  that  no  person,  born  after 
that  day,  should  ever  acquire  the  rights  of  citizenship 
until  he  could  read  and  write.  It  is  impossible  suf- 
ficiently to  estimate  the  wisdom  of  this  provision. 
Of  all  those  which  have  been  thought  of  for  securing 
fidelity  in  the  administration  of  the  government,  con- 
stant ralliance  to  the  principles  of  the  Constitution, 
and  progressive  amendments  with  the  progressive 
advances  of  the  human  mind,  or  changes  in  human 
affairs,  it  is  the  most  effectual.  Enlighten  the  people 
generally,  and  tyranny  and  oppressions  of  body  and 
mind  will  vanish  like  evil  spirits  at  the  dawn  of  day. 
Although  I  do  not,  with  some  enthusiasts,  believe 
that  the  human  condition  will  ever  advance  to  such  a 
state  of  perfection  as  that  there  shall  no  longer  be 
pain  or  vice  in  the  world,  yet  I  believe  it  susceptible 
of  much  improvement,  and  most  of  all,  in  matters  of 
government  and  religion;    and  that  the  diffusion  of 


492  Jefferson's  Works 

knowledge  among  the  people  is  to  be  the  instrument 
by  which  it  is  to  be  effected.  The  Constitution  of 
the  Cortes  had  defects  enough ;  but  when  I  saw  in  it 
this  amendatory  provision,  I  was  satisfied  all  would 
come  right  in  time,  under  its  salutary  operation.  No 
people  have  more  need  of  a  similar  provision  than 
those  for  whom  you  have  felt  so  much  interest.  No 
mortal  wishes  them  more  success  than  I  do.  But  if 
what  I  have  heard  of  the  ignorance  and  bigotry  of 
the  mass  be  true,  I  doubt  their  capacity  to  under- 
stand and  to  support  a  free  government ;  and  fear 
that  their  emancipation  from  the  foreign  tyranny  of 
Spain,  will  result  in  a  military  despotism  at  home. 
Palacios  may  be  great;  others  may  be  great;  but  it 
is  the  multitude  which  possesses  force;  and  wisdom 
must  yield  to  that.  For  such  a  condition  of  society, 
the  Constitution  you  have  devised  is  probably  the 
best  imaginable.  It  is  certainly  calculated  to  solicit 
the  best  talents ;  although  perhaps  not  well  guarded 
against  the  egoism  of  its  functionaries.  But  that  ego- 
ism will  be  light  in  comparison  with  the  pressure  of 
a  military  despot,  and  his  army  of  Janissaries.  Like 
Solon  to  the  Athenians,  you  have  given  to  your 
Columbians,  not  the  best  possible  government,  but 
the  best  they  can  bear.  By-the-bye,  I  wish  you  had 
called  them  the  Columbian  republics,  to  distinguish 
them  from  our  American  republics.  Theirs  would 
be  the  most  honorable  name,  and  they  best  entitled 
to  it;  for  Columbus  discovered  their  continent,  but 
never  saw  ours. 


Correspondence  493 

To  them  liberty  and  happiness ;  to  you  the  meed 
of  wisdom  and  goodness  in  teaching  them  how  to 
attain  them,  with  the  affectionate  respect  and  friend- 
ship of  Th.  J. 


BRIGHAM  YOUNG  UNIVERSITY 


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